home to good Mrs. Wakefield and tell her the truth. Remove not thyself
even for a little week from thy place in her chaste bosom. Were she
for a single moment to deem thee dead or lost or lastingly divided
from her, thou wouldst be woefully conscious of a change in thy true
wife for ever after. It is perilous to make a chasm in human
affections--not that they gape so long and wide, but so quickly close
again.

Almost repenting of his frolic, or whatever it may be termed,
Wakefield lies down betimes, and, starting from his first nap, spreads
forth his arms into the wide and solitary waste of the unaccustomed
bed, "No," thinks he, gathering the bedclothes about him; "I will not
sleep alone another night." In the morning he rises earlier than usual
and sets himself to consider what he really means to do. Such are his
loose and rambling modes of thought that he has taken this very
singular step with the consciousness of a purpose, indeed, but without
being able to define it sufficiently for his own contemplation. The
vagueness of the project and the convulsive effort with which he
plunges into the execution of it are equally characteristic of a
feeble-minded man. Wakefield sifts his ideas, however, as minutely as
he may, and finds himself curious to know the progress of matters at
home--how his exemplary wife will endure her widowhood of a week, and,
briefly, how the little sphere of creatures and circumstances in which
he was a central object will be affected by his removal. A morbid
vanity, therefore, lies nearest the bottom of the affair. But how is
he to attain his ends? Not, certainly, by keeping close in this
comfortable lodging, where, though he slept and awoke in the next
street to his home, he is as effectually abroad as if the stage-coach
had been whirling him away all night. Yet should he reappear, the
whole project is knocked in the head. His poor brains being hopelessly