So I thought no more of succour or sympathy from any one of my friends. As a stranger I had been driven from my home, and as a stranger I was resigned to live, until I had learnt how to conquer my misfortune by my own vigour and endurance. Firm in this determination, though firm in nothing else, I now looked around me for the first shelter I could purchase from strangers—the humbler the better.
I happened to be in the poorest part, and on the poorest side of the great street along which I was walking—among the inferior shops, and the houses of few stories. A room to let was not hard to find here. I took the first I saw; escaped questions about names and references by paying my week’s rent in advance; and then found myself left in possession of the one little room which I must be resigned to look on for the future—perhaps for a long future!—as my home.
Home! A dear and a mournful remembrance was revived in the reflections suggested by that simple word. Through the darkness that thickened over my mind, there now passed one faint ray of light which gave promise of the morning—the light of the calm face that I had last looked on when it was resting on my father’s breast.
Clara! My parting words to her, when I had unclasped from my neck those kind arms which would fain have held me to home forever, had expressed a promise that was yet unfulfilled. I trembled as I now thought on my sister’s situation. Not knowing whither I had turned my steps on leaving home; uncertain to what extremities my despair might hurry me; absolutely ignorant even whether she might ever see me again—it was terrible to reflect on the suspense under which she might be suffering, at this very moment, on my account. My promise to write to her, was of all promises the most vitally important, and the first that should be fulfilled.