But now, no sooner did he perceive her, than he felt as if she had been all the world to him ever since that strange adventure in the Temple. He really believed that this had been the case; and the mad delusion took command of him and carried him away with it. He loved her--her only, he thought--the dear little girl who had passed that evening with him in his rooms--Oh! so long ago, it appeared now to him, not in years though, but in change of nature. Yes, he was sunk now beyond redemption, he was utterly lost--a degraded wretch--so he dared not go up to her and speak to her; he was too foul a thing to approach _her_--and he almost burst into hysterical tears, as he turned his back to her while she passed him, that she might not see his face; and then he walked away in an opposite direction--whither he cared not--in that condition when all good has abandoned the soul of a man, and it is empty, and will only open to devils. He no longer thought of his mistress, his beloved Edith, or of his engagement with her. He went into refreshment bar after refreshment bar, asking at each for brandies, which he swallowed neat and at a gulp one after the other; so that men looked askance at him, and the bar-maids who served him pitied him, and begged him to drink no more. He did not become drunk, he was beyond that stage; but a fierce despairing sullenness seized him and was expressed in his features, which were now as pale as death, with two large eyes blazing out from darkened circles. And so on and on, hour after hour, until the time when we left him outside the Albion, running away from the one human being who wished to befriend him. All this while Susan Riley, in no contented mood, was waiting for him in his chambers, which appeared cheerless enough, for no fire was burning in the grate, and she could find but one candle to place on the table, whose light only threw out in stronger gloom the dark wainscotting and sombre-coloured furniture. As the tedious hours went by, she paced up and down the rooms, and sat down in turns. She took down book after book from his shelves but could find nothing to interest her. Then she opened his drawers and desks, and looked over some of Hudson's private papers. This was a favourite amusement of hers when she was left alone in his chambers; and she had contrived, by reading his letters whenever she had an opportunity, to learn a good deal about his family, and pecuniary prospects. She was examining the contents of a desk, turning over some manuscript, poems, and articles in a cursory fashion, when her eye happened to fall on the title of one of these, "La Fille de Marbre."