"Come!" said the father, roughly. "There's enough of this. Get to
bed here!"
"The place is inconvenient and small enough," the mother added,
"without you. Get to bed!"
The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny and the
baby lagging last. The mother, glancing contemptuously round the
sordid room, and tossing from her the fragments of their meal,
stopped on the threshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat
down, pondering idly and dejectedly. The father betook himself to
the chimney-corner, and impatiently raking the small fire together,
bent over it as if he would monopolise it all. They did not
interchange a word.
The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief; looking
back upon the change below, and dreading equally to go on or
return.
"What have I done!" he said, confusedly. "What am I going to do!"
"To be the benefactor of mankind," he thought he heard a voice
reply.
He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a passage now
shutting out the little parlour from his view, he went on,
directing his eyes before him at the way he went.
"It is only since last night," he muttered gloomily, "that I have
remained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me. I am
strange to myself. I am here, as in a dream.
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