I was to return to London in a day or two, to see about any
commission that might have been neglected, and to bring down the
boy, who was now daily expected.

In my absence I received the following letter from Arthur. The serene
mood had had its reaction.

"I have told you, I think, of the depressing effect that a new place
has on me till I get habituated to it. There is a constant sense of
unrest, just as there is about a new person, that racks the nerves.

"I have been very anxious and 'heavy' to-day, as the Psalms have it:
dispirited about the future and the present, and remorseful about the
past. You don't mind my speaking freely, do you? I feel so weak and
womanish, I must tell some one. I have no one to lean on here.

"I can't see what to make of my life, or, rather, what can possibly
be made of it. I have taken hitherto all the rebuffs I have had—and
they have not been few—as painful steps in an education which was to
fit me for something. I was having, I hoped, experience which was to
enable me to sympathize with human beings fully, when I came to speak
to them, to teach them, to lead them, as I have all my life believed
I some day should.

"You won't think it conceited if I say this to you, my dear Chris?
I don't feel to myself as if I was like other people. I have met
several people better and on a higher level than myself, but no one
on quite the same level—no one, to put it shortly, quite so _sure_
as I am.