Powell's reiteration of his old advice expressed the very thought that had been nebulous in Marley's mind for days, and while he was conscious of it, he feared the consciousness, and struggled to prevent it from positing itself. But now that Powell had voiced it for him, he could escape it no longer, and it filled him with a fear. He went about all the day with this fear appalling him; more and more under its perverse influence he felt himself an alien, and the people he met in the street seemed unreal and strange, outlandish persons whom he had never known. They came upon him as ghosts, or if they did something to prove their reality, he seemed to be some ghost himself. In the afternoon he received a note from Lavinia; she said that she was going that evening with George Halliday to a concert in the Opera House. She did not want to go a bit, she said, but her mother, and especially her father, had urged her to go; arguing that she now went out so seldom that it must do her good, and besides, they had urged her so often that she felt it to be her duty in this instance; she had held out as long as she could, and then had yielded. Marley tried to look upon the note reasonably; he could see the influence that had compelled Lavinia to go, and he knew he had no right to blame her, and yet, try as he would, he could not escape a feeling of bitterness. When he went home at evening his mother instantly noticed his depression, and implored him for the reason. He did not answer for a while, that is, it seemed a while to Mrs. Marley, but at last he said: "Mother, I've got to leave." "Leave?" she repeated, pronouncing the word in a hollow note of fear. "Yes, leave." "But what for?" "Well, you know I'm no good; I'm making no headway; there's no place for me here in Macochee; I've got to get out into the world and _make_ a place for myself, somewhere." "But where?" "I don't know--anywhere." Marley moved his hand in a wide gesture that included the whole world, and yet was without hope of conquest. "But you must have some plans--some idea--" "Well, I've thought of going to Cincinnati; maybe to Chicago." "But what will you do?" Mrs. Marley looked at him with pain and alarm. "Do!" he said, his voice rising almost angrily. "Why, anything I can get to do. Anything, anything, sweeping streets, digging ditches, anything!" Mrs. Marley looked at her son, sitting there before her with his head bowed in his hands. In her own face were reflected the pain and trouble that darkened his, and yet she felt herself helpless; she vaguely realized that he was engaged in a battle that he must after all fight alone; she could not help him, though she wished that she knew how to impart to him the faith she had that he would win the battle, somehow, in the end. "Poor boy!" she said at length, rising; "you are not yourself just now. Think it all over and talk to your father about it."