Hence--he had decided on his present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its progress he had no very distinct idea.

His actual plan was to walk to Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or goal in view.

And the reason of his determination to go "on the road," as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the supposed joys of the very wealthy.

This scheme had been working in his brain for the past year or more,--all his business arrangements had been made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to himself without taking any one else into his confidence.

The only thing that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he had held out to her.