Poor Wakefield ! little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great world . No mortal eye but mine has traced thee . Go quietly to thy bed , foolish man , and on the morrow , if thou wilt be wise , get thee home to good Mrs. Wakefield and tell her the truth . Remove not thyself even for a little week from thy place in her chaste bosom . Were she for a single moment to deem thee dead or lost or lastingly divided from her , thou wouldst be woefully conscious of a change in thy true wife for ever after . It is perilous to make a chasm in human affections -- not that they gape so long and wide , but so quickly close again . Almost repenting of his frolic , or whatever it may be termed , Wakefield lies down betimes , and , starting from his first nap , spreads forth his arms into the wide and solitary waste of the unaccustomed bed , `` No , '' thinks he , gathering the bedclothes about him ; `` I will not sleep alone another night . '' In the morning he rises earlier than usual and sets himself to consider what he really means to do . Such are his loose and rambling modes of thought that he has taken this very singular step with the consciousness of a purpose , indeed , but without being able to define it sufficiently for his own contemplation . The vagueness of the project and the convulsive effort with which he plunges into the execution of it are equally characteristic of a feeble-minded man . Wakefield sifts his ideas , however , as minutely as he may , and finds himself curious to know the progress of matters at home -- how his exemplary wife will endure her widowhood of a week , and , briefly , how the little sphere of creatures and circumstances in which he was a central object will be affected by his removal . A morbid vanity , therefore , lies nearest the bottom of the affair . But how is he to attain his ends ? Not , certainly , by keeping close in this comfortable lodging , where , though he slept and awoke in the next street to his home , he is as effectually abroad as if the stage-coach had been whirling him away all night . Yet should he reappear , the whole project is knocked in the head . His poor brains being hopelessly puzzled with this dilemma , he at length ventures out , partly resolving to cross the head of the street and send one hasty glance toward his forsaken domicile . Habit -- for he is a man of habits -- takes him by the hand and guides him , wholly unaware , to his own door , where , just at the critical moment , he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon the step . -- Wakefield , whither are you going ? At that instant his fate was turning on the pivot .
Little dreaming of the doom to which his first backward step devotes him , he hurries away , breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt , and hardly dares turn his head XXXXX the distant corner .
about as at from into of than to toward with