I may have been very greatly to blame in my passionate wooing of another man's affianced wife; but, at least, I believe that my loss of Cynthia was a far greater and more crushing loss for me than the loss of any woman could possibly have been for Charles Barthrop. For me, she had stood for all life held that was desirable--the sum and plexus of my aims. For Barthrop there were his keenly relished sports and pastimes, his host of friends, his family, his luxurious and well-defined place in the world--not to mention the city of London. V When I left the spacious purlieus of Salisbury, it was to engage chambers--bedroom, sitting-room, and bathroom--in a remodelled adjunct to one of the Inns of Court. Here my arrangement was that a simple breakfast should be served to me each day in my sitting-room, and that I was free to obtain my other meals wherever I might choose. Thus provided for in the matter of a place of residence, I resumed the discarded journalistic life, as a member of the _Advocate's_ editorial staff, in accordance with the engagement entered into with Arncliffe, when I believed I had been arranging to secure an income for Cynthia and myself. Before renting these rooms I had called upon Sidney Heron, and invited him to share a set of chambers with me. 'No,' he said, in his blunt way, 'I'd rather keep you as a friend.' I dare say he was right; and, in any case, he had a fancy for living at a good distance from the centre of the town; whereas my own inclination was to avoid the town altogether, if that might be, and failing this to have one's sanctuary right in the centre of it. My chambers were within five minutes' walk of the _Advocate_ office, and not much more than half that distance from the Thames Embankment--a spot which interested me as much as its lively neighbour, the Strand, irritated and worried me. An uneasy, shoddy street I thought the Strand, full of insistent tawdriness and of broken-spirited folk whose wretchedness had something in it more despicable than pitiable. Save for its occasional gaping rustics (whom I thought sadly misguided to be there at all) I cordially hated the Strand. But the Embankment I regarded as one of the most romantic thoroughfares in London; and many a score of articles (which brought me money) do I owe to the inspiration of that broad, darkling, river-skirted road, and the queer human flotsam and jetsam one may meet with there.