I laughed at her whimsical way of putting it; but at the back of my brain was a troubled idea that perhaps she was revealing to me the truth. And if so, what would “waking up,” as she termed it, be like? A flash of memory recalled to me that summer evening upon Barking Bridge, when, as it had seemed to me, the little childish Paul had slipped away from me, leaving me lonely and bewildered to find another Self. Was my boyhood in like manner now falling from me? I found myself clinging to it with vague terror. Its thoughts, its feelings--dreams: they had grown sweet to me; must I lose them? This cold, unknown, new Self, waiting to receive me: I shrank away from it with fear. “Do you know, I think you will be rather nice when you wake up.” Her words recalled me to myself. “Perhaps I never shall wake up,” I said. “I don't want to wake up.” “Oh, but one can't go on dreaming all one's life,” she laughed. “You'll wake up, and fall in love with somebody real.” She came across to me, and taking the lapels of my coat in both her hands, gave me a vigorous shake. “I hope she'll be somebody nice. I am rather afraid.” “You seem to think me a fool!” I was still angry with her, without quite knowing why. She shook me again. “You know I don't. But it isn't the nice people that take best care of themselves. Tom can't. I have to take care of him.” I laughed. “I do, really. You should hear me scold him. I like taking care of people. Good-bye.” She held out her hand. It was white now and shapely, but one could not have called it small. Strong it felt and firm as it gripped mine. CHAPTER VIII. AND HOW CAME BACK AGAIN. I left London, the drums beating in my heart, the flags waving in my brain. Somewhat more than a year later, one foggy wet December evening, I sneaked back to it defeated--ah, that is a small thing, capable of redress--disgraced. I returned to it as to a hiding-place where, lost in the crowd, I might waste my days unnoticed until such time as I could summon up sufficient resolution to put an end to my dead life. I had been ambitious--dwelling again amid the bitterness of the months that followed my return, I write in the past tense. I had been eager to make a name, a position for myself. But were I to claim no higher aim, I should be doing injustice to my blood--to the great-souled gentleman whose whole life had been an ode to honour, to her of simple faith who had known no other prayer to teach me than the childish cry, “God help me to be good!” I had wished to be a great man, but it was to have been a great good man. The world was to have admired me, but to have respected me also. I was to have been the knight without fear, but, rarer yet, without reproach--Galahad, not Launcelot. I had learnt myself to be a feeble, backboneless fighter, conquered by the first serious assault of evil, a creature of mean fears, slave to every crack of the devil's whip, a feeder with swine.