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CHAPTER V.

Revealing glimpses of Guy Darrell's past in his envied prime. Dig but deep enough, and under all earth runs water, under all life runs grief.

Alone in the streets, the vivacity which had characterized Darrell's countenance as well as his words, while with his old school friend, changed as suddenly and as completely into pensive abstracted gloom as if he had been acting a part, and with the exit the acting ceased. Disinclined to return yet to the solitude of his home, he walked on, at first mechanically, in the restless desire of movement, he cared not whither. But, as thus chance-led, he found himself in the centre of that long straight thoroughfare which connects what once were the separate villages of Tyburn and Holborn, something in the desultory links of reverie suggested an object to his devious feet. He had but to follow that street to his right hand to gain, in a quarter of an hour, a sight of the humble dwelling-house in which he had first settled down, after his early marriage, to the arid labors of the bar. He would go, now that, wealthy and renowned, he was revisiting the long deserted focus of English energies, and contemplate the obscure abode in which his powers had been first concentred on the pursuit of renown and wealth. Who among my readers that may have risen on the glittering steep, ("Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb?"^[1]) has not been similarly attracted toward the roof, at the craggy foot of the ascent, under which golden dreams refreshed his straining sinews? Somewhat quickening his steps, now that a bourne was assigned to them, the man growing old in years, but, unhappily for himself, too tenacious of youth in its grand discontent, and keen susceptibilities to pain, strode noiselessly on, under the gaslights, under the stars; gaslights primly marshalled at equidistance; stars that seem, to the naked eye, dotted over space without symmetry or method—Man's order, near and finite, is so distinct; the Maker's order, remote, infinite, is so beyond Man's comprehension even of what is order!

Darrell paused, hesitating. He had now gained a spot in which improvement had altered the landmarks. The superb

1. "Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
   The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?"

   Beattie.