By this time he had almost unconsciously ascended the stairs, and found himself in his own room. What must he do? It was impossible to let such a state of things continue any longer. What remained? To go, of course! The idea flashed like an inspiration upon him. He would fly--now, at once, Sebastian was out; Mrs. Mallory would certainly not try to prevent his departure. What should he take? what leave? He made an excited rush to his wardrobe, his drawers, and began to turn them out. Then another idea struck him. That would not do. They were all Sebastian’s things. Not one of them but had been bought with Sebastian’s money. He could not take any of them. It would be stealing. He looked down with a shudder at the very clothes he wore. No--he must take nothing; but he must go--he must get away from here, and go and earn some money, and pay Sebastian back. But he never could do that. How could he repay the kindness, the advice, the friendship--the care that had watched over him, the generosity which had condoned a thousand impertinences and wayward wearisome fancies? No money, no service, could ever repay these things. But at least he must get away--must remove himself. That very generosity which he had so often proved might, for anything he knew, have wearied of him long ago, though it would never say so. He rose with the vague intention of getting out of the house with as few impediments as possible, and, once out of it, never to re-enter it. And then memory and conscience again asserted themselves. What was it that he had promised Sebastian only last night? Not to do anything of any importance without first telling him of his intention. He could not even go, for he would not begin his new career by breaking his word to the man to whom he owed everything. He must wait. ‘Oh, Sebastian!’ groaned the poor boy, flinging himself face downwards upon a couch at the foot of his bed, ‘it was cruel, cruel of you! You should not have treated me thus!’ Men of Hugo’s temperament weep sometimes with almost womanly facility, and Hugo, in his new-born anguish and despair, wept now; and when the weeping was over, he did not rise, but remained with his face buried in the cushions, repeating to himself every item of Sebastian’s generosity, and his own blind, besotted self-confidence and ignorant assumption (such it appeared to him). A thousand things rose up in his memory, and he asked himself how he could have failed to comprehend their meaning, to have some suspicion of his real position. He resolved, with more and more impassioned eagerness, to _go_; to wait till he had redeemed his promise, and then to say farewell, and bid Sebastian forget him. How his heart ached at the thought! But no alternative was open to him. He was a gentleman. No gentleman could knowingly continue to live as he had been doing.