If such was the effect this incident had on the padrona, it may be imagined what sort of a tempest it was which swept through Laurie’s mind and spirit when he left her. He disappeared under the bitter waves. Not only was there no sign of life in his windows, but, so far as he was himself conscious, there was no sign left in life to represent what he had done with that distracted, incoherent day. The chances are that he did most of the ordinary things he was in the habit of doing,--was seen at his club, and talked to his friends somewhat in his usual strain. Indeed, I have heard a _mot_ attributed to Laurie, which could have been spoken but on that special evening, if it was spoken at all. I do not suppose he made any exhibition of himself to the outer world; but I can only take up the tale at the moment when, worn out and weary, he got back to his room in Charlotte Street, and came to the surface, as it were, and looked himself in the face once more. The agitation of the past three days had told upon him. He had been shaken by the strange sweet shock of his discovery that he loved her; and now upon that came the other discovery, involved in the first, that he had spent his strength for naught, and wasted all his wealth of emotion on a dream. Of course he had known all along it must be a dream; so he said to himself. He had poured out his heart as a libation in her honour. What more had he ever hoped it could be? And now he was empty and drained of both strength and joy. His pain was even mingled with shame,--that shame of the sensitive mind when it discovers that its hopes have been beyond what ought to be hoped for. His cheeks burned when he remembered that he had dreamed it was possible for this woman, so much higher placed than himself in the dignity of life, so far before him in the road, to turn and stoop from her natural position, and love him in her turn. He would have dragged her down, taken her from her secure eminence, placed her in a false position, exposed her to the jeers and laughter of the world,--all for the satisfaction of his selfish craving! He would have gone in the face of nature, ignored all the sobering and maturing processes which had made her what she was, and drawn her back to that rudimentary place in the world which her own daughter was ready to fill. Was not this what he would have done had he had his will? A hot flush of shame came over Laurie’s face in his solitude. He felt humiliated at the thought of his own vanity, his own folly. When she had held out her hands to him, when she had given him that kiss of everlasting dismissal, nature had asserted itself. Youth is sweet; it has the best of everything; it is the cream of existence; but yet when the grave soul of maturity drops back to youth, and gives up its own place, and ignores all its painful advantages, is there not a certain shame in it? Had the padrona been able to make that sudden descent,--could she have done what on his knees he would have prayed her to do,--then she would no longer have been herself. This consciousness, unexpressed, flashed across his mind in heat and shame, aggravating all his sufferings. That it could not be was bad enough; but to be compelled to allow that it was best that it should not be,--to feel that success for him would have been humiliation and downfall for her,--was not that the hardest of all?