The cause of the curate's apparent neglect, though ill to find, was
not far to seek.

On the Monday, he had, upon some pretext or other, been turned away;
on the Tuesday, he had been told that Mr. Lingard had gone for a
drive; on the Wednesday, that he was much too tired to be seen; and
thereupon had at length judged it better to leave things to right
themselves. If Leopold did not want to see him, it would be of no
use by persistence to force his way to him; while on the other hand,
if he did want to see him, he felt convinced the poor fellow would
manage to have his own way somehow.

The next morning after he had thus resolved, Leopold declared
himself better, and got up and dressed. He then lay on the sofa and
waited as quietly as he could until Helen went out--Mr, Faber
insisting she should do so every day. It was no madness, but a
burning desire for life, coupled with an utter carelessness of that
which is commonly called life, that now ruled his behaviour. He tied
his slippers on his feet, put on his smoking-cap, crept unseen from
the house, and took the direction, of the Abbey. The influence of
the air--by his weakness rendered intoxicating, the strange look of
everything around him, the nervous excitement of every human
approach, kept him up until he reached the churchyard, across which
he was crawling, to find the curate's lodging, when suddenly his
brain seemed to go swimming away into regions beyond the senses. He
attempted to seat himself on a grave-stone, but lost consciousness,
and fell at full length between that and the next one.

When Helen returned, she was horrified to find that he had