‘Yes,’ he said to himself, with a little forlorn attempt to rouse up and cheer himself on, ‘to the Antipodes!’ where perhaps there might be something to do, of as much importance, or more, than draining the Thames Valley: where the primitive steps of civilisation had yet to be made, and he might be of use at least to somebody. That was one thing to the good at least, to have decided so much as that. And then he seized his hat and went out. There was still one preliminary more important than any other, and that was to find the cause of all this ruin, the future object of his life. Everything else must go; his scheme--he had thrown down all his papers on the office-table, and left them there, for what was the good of them now? his love? He took up finally the letter to Elly, and with his teeth set dropped it into the box at the first post-office he came to. Having done this he stood all denuded, naked, as it were, before fate, and went forth to seek him who was the cause of it all--his father the convict; the man whom it would be his duty to serve and care for, who was all that was left to him in life. Perhaps, if it had not been for this failure in respect to his work, for the betrayal of which he had been the victim, and the prompt discovery and consequent abandonment of him by his employers which had followed, John would not have been so certain of his duty. He never could have taken his mother’s advice and altogether forsaken the father whom he had so unfortunately discovered. But he might have been induced to conceal May’s existence, and to make some compromise between abandoning him altogether and burdening his life with the perpetual charge of him, as he now intended. The conjunction of circumstances, however, had narrowed the path which lay before him. Never, in any case, could he have kept Elly to the tie, which as yet was no tie, when he discovered the disgrace which overshadowed his family; and with both his great motives withdrawn--his love and his ambition--what did there remain for John? To enter with his reputation as a social traitor the service of Spender & Diggs? As soon would a soldier in the field desert to the enemy. And what, then, remained for him to do? Australia, where there was a fresh field, and where not only he but the poor burden on his life, the soiled and shamed criminal, would be unknown, and might begin again.