London, Nicholas had made his way alone to the city, and stood beneath
the windows of his mother's house. It was dull and bare to see, but it
had light and life for him; for there was at least one heart within
its old walls to which insult or dishonour would bring the same blood
rushing, that flowed in his own veins.

He crossed the road, and raised his eyes to the window of the room where
he knew his sister slept. It was closed and dark. 'Poor girl,' thought
Nicholas, 'she little thinks who lingers here!'

He looked again, and felt, for the moment, almost vexed that Kate was
not there to exchange one word at parting. 'Good God!' he thought,
suddenly correcting himself, 'what a boy I am!'

'It is better as it is,' said Nicholas, after he had lounged on, a few
paces, and returned to the same spot. 'When I left them before, and
could have said goodbye a thousand times if I had chosen, I spared them
the pain of leave-taking, and why not now?' As he spoke, some fancied
motion of the curtain almost persuaded him, for the instant, that Kate
was at the window, and by one of those strange contradictions of feeling
which are common to us all, he shrunk involuntarily into a doorway, that
she might not see him. He smiled at his own weakness; said 'God bless
them!' and walked away with a lighter step.

Smike was anxiously expecting him when he reached his old lodgings, and
so was Newman, who had expended a day's income in a can of rum and milk
to prepare them for the journey. They had tied up the luggage, Smike
shouldered it, and away they went, with Newman Noggs in company; for he
had insisted on walking as far as he could with them, overnight.