I can only say one thing certainly, and that is that I shall not come back here.

There never was a fellow so loose about the world as I am." It was terrible that a young man who had it in his power to do so much good or so much evil should have had nothing to bind him to the better course! There was the motto of his house, and the promises which he had made to his uncle persuading him to that which was respectable and as he thought dull; and opposed to those influences there was an unconquerable feeling on his own part that he was altogether unfitted for the kind of life that was expected of him.

Joined to this there was the fact of that unfortunate connection in Ireland from which he knew that it would be base to fly, and which, as it seemed to him, made any attempt at respectability impossible to him.
Early on the following morning, as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him.

She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him.

Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care.