happened to offend him.

I know not how long I had been walking in the park, thus absorbed yet
not thinking, when the clock of a neighbouring church struck three,
and roused me to the remembrance that I had engaged to ride out with
my sister at two o'clock. It would be nearly half-an-hour more before
I could reach home. Never had any former appointment of mine with
Clara been thus forgotten! Love had not yet turned me selfish, as it
turns all men, and even all women, more or less. I felt both sorrow
and shame at the neglect of which I had been guilty; and hastened
homeward.

The groom, looking unutterably weary and discontented, was still
leading my horse up and down before the house. My sister's horse had
been sent back to the stables. I went in; and heard that, after
waiting for me an hour, Clara had gone out with some friends, and
would not be back before dinner.

No one was in the house but the servants. The place looked dull,
empty, inexpressibly miserable to me; the distant roll of carriages
along the surrounding streets had a heavy boding sound; the opening
and shutting of doors in the domestic offices below, startled and
irritated me; the London air seemed denser to breathe than it had ever
seemed before. I walked up and down one of the rooms, fretful and
irresolute. Once I directed my steps towards my study; but retraced
them before I had entered it. Reading or writing was out of the
question at that moment.

I felt the secret inclination strengthening within me to return to
Hollyoake Square; to try to see the girl again, or at least to