puzzled with this dilemma, he at length ventures out, partly resolving
to cross the head of the street and send one hasty glance toward his
forsaken domicile. Habit--for he is a man of habits--takes him by the
hand and guides him, wholly unaware, to his own door, where, just at
the critical moment, he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon
the step.--Wakefield, whither are you going?

At that instant his fate was turning on the pivot. Little dreaming of
the doom to which his first backward step devotes him, he hurries
away, breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt, and hardly dares turn
his head at the distant corner. Can it be that nobody caught sight of
him? Will not the whole household--the decent Mrs. Wakefield, the
smart maid-servant and the dirty little footboy--raise a hue-and-cry
through London streets in pursuit of their fugitive lord and master?
Wonderful escape! He gathers courage to pause and look homeward, but
is perplexed with a sense of change about the familiar edifice such as
affects us all when, after a separation of months or years, we again
see some hill or lake or work of art with which we were friends of
old. In ordinary cases this indescribable impression is caused by the
comparison and contrast between our imperfect reminiscences and the
reality. In Wakefield the magic of a single night has wrought a
similar transformation, because in that brief period a great moral
change has been effected. But this is a secret from himself. Before
leaving the spot he catches a far and momentary glimpse of his wife
passing athwart the front window with her face turned toward the head
of the street. The crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with
the idea that among a thousand such atoms of mortality her eye must
have detected him. Right glad is his heart, though his brain be
somewhat dizzy, when he finds himself by the coal-fire of his
lodgings.