"'Come and see me soon,' she added hastily, and left me. I saw her
get into a carriage, which she had doubtless quitted to take a walk;
and when she drove past, she put her head out and looked at me with
her eyes wide open--there was an almost wildly anxious expression in
them.

"I went home. My way led me past her house--it was a palace. I shut
myself up in my wretched hotel-room, and once more I fell to
dreaming. Ellen loved me; she admired me; she was not for ever lost
to me! The pendulum was swinging, you see, up as high as Madness.
Explain to me, if you can, how it happens that a being perfectly
rational in ordinary life should at certain seasons, and, so to
speak, voluntarily, be bereft of reason. To excuse and explain my
temporary insanity, I am ready to admit that the excitement to which
I gave way may have been a symptom of the nervous malady which laid
hold of me a few days later, and stretched me for weeks upon a bed
of pain.

"As I became convalescent, reason and composure returned. But it was
too late. In the space of two months, twenty years had passed over
my head. When I rose from my sick-bed I was as feeble and as broken-
down as you see me now. My past had been cheerless and dim, without
one ray of happiness; yet that past was all my life! Henceforward
there was nothing left for me to undertake, to regret, or to desire.
The pendulum swung idly backwards and forwards on the line of
Indifference. I wonder what are the feelings of successful men--of
men who HAVE been victorious generals, prime ministers, celebrated
authors, and that sort of tiling! Upheld by a legitimate pride, do
they retire satisfied from the lists when evening conies, or do they
lay down their arms as I did, disappointed and dejected, and worn