I am sure he must have been hurt, but he was by far too true-bred a gentleman to betray as much. I fear we were both still a little drunk, but I do not think the fervour of our leave-takings owed anything to the heat of our brains. To this day I have always thought of this fine spirit, this great master of the science of human nature, with the same degree of affection. As for him, I do not suppose he ever gave me a second thought, or if he did, I could be nothing more than a whimsical circumstance, a piece of romantical history. But at the time of our parting, his pitiful, generous heart enabled him to feel a very real concern for my welfare, and also for that of my wayward little one who had treated him so harshly. No sooner had I left Mr. Fielding waving his frank good-bye from the steps of the house, than I set off running in hot pursuit of Cynthia. The gate of the porter's lodge at the end of the long dark avenue of overhanging trees was just closing upon her, when I overtook her. She was in too proud and defiant a mood to pay any attention to the fact that I had done so, and that I was walking greatly out of breath by her side. I followed her implicitly into the weary darkness. I did not dare to break the dogged silence she maintained, and therefore maintained one too. For I had not walked a mile in the cool night air before I was as sober as any man could be. And perfect sobriety brought a new shame and a fuller measure of repentance. Lord knows, I had been drunk often enough before; more completely and uproariously so; I had committed far greater excesses in that state than any I had been guilty of that evening; and yet now for almost the first time I conceived a disgust for such a folly. Lord knows, I am so little of a pietist that the sense of humiliation which came upon me as I walked by the side of the silent Cynthia was so foreign to my character, that I almost laughed at myself for suffering it. Yet at the same time I was bitterly angry with myself. No man's weaknesses could have led him to play a more unworthy part. As we walked mile upon mile on the dark, tree-shadowed highway that led to anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere, there never was so moral a person as I outside the moral pages of Mr. Richardson. Self-abasement creaked out of my boots, self-reproach fluttered out of my brains, self-abnegation beat out of my heart. I forget the name of the Moral Muse; indeed, now I come to think of it, there is most probably none such among them, for I fear they are baggages all. But in the name of the righteous lady, whoever she be, was there ever such a hang-dog rogue as I?--such a whipt cur with his tail between his legs?