He sat down before the handful of smouldering cinders in the little parlour grate, and thought out his plan. He had suffered much from Mrs. Dibble about the five hundred pounds; he had purchased peace by its return, and she had forgiven him. But how had he bought peace? If he remained where he was, he would be sure to confess, and then what would Maria say? what would Paul say? what would his sister say? what did his own conscience say now? He could not endure the latter, even in secret, and how could he bear the former? No, he would run away. His master was at home, in grief and sorrow for the disgrace of his son. That son had dishonoured the name of Tallant, and Paul Somerton was on the verge of becoming an outcast. It would be better that he, Thomas Dibble, should go forth and become a wanderer and a beggar than that the innocent should suffer, and bring disgrace upon a respectable family. Then poor old Dibble thought about his oath, and fear came upon him in a remembrance of the dreadful consequences which Mr. Gibbs had described. Then he thought of Maria, but a bitter memory of the wretched life he had led with her, during the monetary interregnum, steeled him slightly against her, and he consoled himself with the feeling that at least she had the money back again. A hundred other things occurred to Thomas as reasons why he should run away, and why he should not. It was dishonourable to take an oath and take a man’s money without sticking to the bargain; but no gentleman ought to have inveigled a poor man into such a plot. No matter which way Thomas looked at the case, he saw himself a disgraced man; but he thought there was far less disgrace in running away than in staying behind, and a thousand times more disgrace in letting the affair go on than in preventing the conspiracy from taking effect. So Thomas decided that he would go, that he would be a wanderer, a beggar, a tramp,--anything but a persecutor of the innocent. He would eat Mrs. Dibble’s bread-and-butter no longer. It occupied him nearly two hours to write out in his big, round, straggling hand a brief account of his share in the plot to ruin Paul, and having done this, and signed it, and laid it in the middle of the parlour table, directed to Paul Somerton, he wrote on another sheet of paper, “Farwell, Maria, and if for ever, may you forgiv your herring sinner, T. Dibble.” Then the model porter of the Meter Works thought it would be only fair to let Mr. Gibbs know that he had confessed all. He, therefore, wrote a very short but very large letter to “Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, Esq.,” determining to leave London by the West End, and put the letter under the door of Mr. Gibbs’ lodgings as he passed by. It was on a fine, bright, starlight autumn morning that Thomas Dibble went forth on his pilgrimage.