At first it had been the keen tooth of that wrong, the undeserved disgrace that had fallen upon him, which had occupied all his sensations. But by degrees other thoughts came in. He had left Edgeley in haste to strike his blow for fortune and reputation, though he was so young, to qualify himself for a new phase of life, to put himself nearer at least to the level of Elly, to justify his own pretensions to her. The scene in Mrs. Egerton’s room suddenly flashed before him as he walked, adding another and yet sharper blow to that which he had already received. He had said that he would succeed, that he should be rich, that he had the ball at his foot. This morning when he came out of his lodgings he had felt the ball at his foot. How could it be otherwise? He knew the value of his own work. It was a work much wanted, upon which the comfort of a district, the value of the property in it, and the lives of its inhabitants might depend. And he felt convinced that he had hit upon the right way of remedying this fault of nature which had given so much trouble and cost so much suffering. What hours and hours he had thought of it and turned it over! What quires of paper he had covered with his calculations! It did not perhaps seem romantic work; but all the poetry in John’s nature had gone into it. It had been Elly’s work, too, though Elly could not have done one of all those endless mathematical exercises. It had occupied his mind for two at least of those early lovely years in which imagination is so sweet: and his imaginations had been sweet, though they had to do, you would have said, with things not lovely, cuttings and embankments, and drawings, and figures upon figures, armies of them, calculations without end. His very walks and the exercise he took, the boating which was his favourite recreation when he had any time, had all been inspired and accompanied by this. While he waited outside a lock, he was busy calculating its fall, and the weight and force of the water, and studying the banks high or low, for his purpose. He had grown learned in the formations of the district, in its geology and its productions with the same motive. He had marked unconsciously where wood could be got at and bricks made for the future works, and when his eye travelled over the river flats to the line of cottages with dull lines upon their lower storey, showing the flood-mark to which the water had risen, there rose in him a fine fervour as he thought that by-and-by all such dangers should come to an end. Thoughts frivolous and unworthy, the light and trifling mental dissipations that beguile young minds, and the insidious curiosities and temptations with which they play, were all crowded out by these imaginations, which were so practical, so professional, so enthusiastic, so full of the poetry of reality. This was the way in which many months had been occupied. And now----!