CHAPTER VII.
"How like a younker or a prodigal, The scarfed bark puts from her native bay!" _Merchant of Venice_.
WE are apt to connect the voice of Conscience with the stillness of midnight.

But I think we wrong that innocent hour.

It is that terrible "NEXT MORNING," when reason is wide awake, upon which remorse fastens its fangs.

Has a man gambled away his all, or shot his friend in a duel--has he committed a crime or incurred a laugh--it is the _next morning_, when the irretrievable Past rises before him like a spectre; then doth the churchyard of memory yield up its grisly dead--then is the witching hour when the foul fiend within us can least tempt perhaps, but most torment.

At night we have one thing to hope for, one refuge to fly to--oblivion and sleep! But at morning, sleep is over, and we are called upon coldly to review, and re-act, and live again the waking bitterness of self-reproach.