After thinking over it, he decided
that he must quit his residence; and as it appeared to him in the light
of duty, he, with an unspoken anguish, commissioned the house-agent of
his town to sell his lease or let the house furnished, without further
parley.
From the house-agent's shop he turned into the chemist's, for a tonic--a
foolish proceeding, for he had received bracing enough in the blow he had
just dealt himself, but he had been cogitating on tonics recently,
imagining certain valiant effects of them, with visions of a former
careless happiness that they were likely to restore. So he requested to
have the tonic strong, and he took one glass of it over the counter.
Fifteen minutes after the draught, he came in sight of his house, and
beholding it, he could have called it a gentlemanly residence aloud under
Lady Camper's windows, his insurgency was of such violence. He talked of
it incessantly, but forbore to tell Elizabeth, as she was looking pale,
the reason why its modest merits touched him so.
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