not in the nature of man that he should run there? He went
in quest of sympathy - in quest of that droll article that we
all suppose ourselves to want when in a strait, and have
agreed to call advice; and he went, besides, with vague but
rather splendid expectations of relief. Alan was rich, or
would be so when he came of age. By a stroke of the pen he
might remedy this misfortune, and avert that dreaded
interview with Mr. Nicholson, from which John now shrunk in
imagination as the hand draws back from fire.

Close under the Calton Hill there runs a certain narrow
avenue, part street, part by-road. The head of it faces the
doors of the prison; its tail descends into the sunless slums
of the Low Calton. On one hand it is overhung by the crags
of the hill, on the other by an old graveyard. Between these
two the roadway runs in a trench, sparsely lighted at night,
sparsely frequented by day, and bordered, when it was cleared
the place of tombs, by dingy and ambiguous houses. One of
these was the house of Colette; and at his door our ill-
starred John was presently beating for admittance. In an
evil hour he satisfied the jealous inquiries of the
contraband hotel-keeper; in an evil hour he penetrated into
the somewhat unsavoury interior. Alan, to be sure, was
there, seated in a room lighted by noisy gas-jets, beside a
dirty table-cloth, engaged on a coarse meal, and in the
company of several tipsy members of the junior bar. But Alan
was not sober; he had lost a thousand pounds upon a horse-
race, had received the news at dinner-time, and was now, in
default of any possible means of extrication, drowning the
memory of his predicament. He to help John! The thing was