He did not write to Dora. "No," he said to himself, "all the faults are on my side; and it is for me to repair them, not by speeches and promises but by deeds. I am not ready yet with a plan of action; but I shall find one soon, and I will clear myself in Dora's eyes. I have lost my child, but I will regain my wife. I will save her for her sake and my own. If I fail, life is no longer of any use to me. Art could never console me; Dora is more fortunate than I; she will find in painting a forgetfulness of the past. For me, I must win back Dora, or everything else is worthless, and I am done for. To work, then, cautiously! Everything will depend on the way in which I set about it." He began reviewing his position. The state of his finances was satisfactory. He still had thirty-two thousand pounds, of which twenty-eight thousand were invested in first-class securities. "By Jove, I have only to clear out of that infernal house in order to be rich; nearly fifteen hundred pounds a year and my brush! Why, of course I am rich." And he hurled at himself a succession of all the abusive epithets in his vocabulary. All his late follies arose and passed in procession before his mind's eye, and he asked himself whether it could really have been he who had committed them. At last his plan of action was clearly traced, and he prepared to execute it in detail, and that without delay. The first thing to do was to interview his landlord, or rather the agent of the noble duke who owned the district of London in which Philip's house stood. He wanted permission to cancel his lease. He was prepared for a decided refusal, or, at the least, for difficulties without end. He was ready to compensate his Grace by paying him a good round sum. The matter was concluded much more easily and rapidly than he had expected or hoped. A rich American, whose daughter lived in the house next to Philip's, and who had long been wishing to settle close to her, was delighted to seize the opportunity, and finally took the house as it was, and renewed the lease with the landlord. It was a stroke of luck for Philip, and he said to himself, "Fortune is decidedly turning a better face to me."