So he would fade away, and in his place would nod to me approvingly a businesslike-looking, wide-awake young fellow. But to one sentimental temptation I succumbed. My position was by now assured; there was no longer any reason for my hiding myself. I determined to move westward. I had not intended to soar so high, but passing through Guildford Street one day, the creeper-covered corner house that my father had once thought of taking recalled itself to me. A card was in the fanlight. I knocked and made enquiries. A bed-sitting-room upon the third floor was vacant. I remembered it well the moment the loquacious landlady opened its door. “This shall be your room, Paul,” said my father. So clearly his voice sounded behind me that I turned, forgetting for the moment it was but a memory. “You will be quiet here, and we can shut out the bed and washstand with a screen.” So my father had his way. It was a pleasant, sunny little room, overlooking the gardens of the hospital. I followed my father's suggestion, shut out the bed and washstand with a screen. And sometimes of an evening it would amuse me to hear my father turn the handle of the door. “How are you getting on--all right?” “Famously.” Often there came back to me the words he had once used. “You must be the practical man, Paul, and get on. Myself, I have always been somewhat of a dreamer. I meant to do such great things in the world, and somehow I suppose I aimed too high. I wasn't--practical.” “But ought not one to aim high?” I had asked. My father had fidgeted in his chair. “It is very difficult to say. It is all so--so very ununderstandable. You aim high and you don't hit anything--at least, it seems as if you didn't. Perhaps, after all, it is better to aim at something low, and--and hit it. Yet it seems a pity--one's ideals, all the best part of one--I don't know why it is. Perhaps we do not understand.” For some months I had been writing over my own name. One day a letter was forwarded to me by an editor to whose care it had been addressed. It was a short, formal note from the maternal Sellars, inviting me to the wedding of her daughter with a Mr. Reginald Clapper. I had almost forgotten the incident of the Lady 'Ortensia, but it was not unsatisfactory to learn that it had terminated pleasantly. Also, I judged from an invitation having been sent me, that the lady wished me to be witness of the fact that my desertion had not left her disconsolate. So much gratification I felt I owed her, and accordingly, purchasing a present as expensive as my means would permit, I made my way on the following Thursday, clad in frock coat and light grey trousers, to Kennington Church. The ceremony was already in progress. Creeping on tiptoe up the aisle, I was about to slip into an empty pew, when a hand was laid upon my sleeve. “We're all here,” whispered the O'Kelly; “just room for ye.”