'I remember,' she said, 'that I have to call in Lamb's Conduit Street
to buy something for my sister. I shall just be in time.' Baruch
went as far as Lamb's Conduit Street with her. He, too, would have
determined his own destiny if she had uttered the word, but the power
to proceed without it was wanting and he fell back. He left her at
the door of the shop. She bid him good-bye, obviously intending that
he should go no further with her, and he shook hands with her, taking
her hand again and shaking it again with a grasp which she knew well
enough was too fervent for mere friendship. He then wandered back
once more to his old room at Clerkenwell. The fire was dead, he
stirred it, the cinders fell through the grate and it dropped out all
together. He made no attempt to rekindle it, but sat staring at the
black ashes, not thinking, but dreaming. Thirty years more perhaps
with no change! The last chance that he could begin a new life had
disappeared. He cursed himself that nothing drove him out of himself
with Marshall and his fellowmen; that he was not Chartist nor
revolutionary; but it was impossible to create in himself enthusiasm
for a cause. He had tried before to become a patriot and had failed,
and was conscious, during the trial, that he was pretending to be
something he was not and could not be. There was nothing to be done
but to pace the straight road in front of him, which led nowhere, so
far as he could see.
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