She passes in , however , opening her prayer-book as she goes . And the man ? With so wild a face that busy and selfish London stands to gaze after him he hurries to his lodgings , bolts the door and throws himself upon the bed . The latent feelings of years break out ; his feeble mind acquires a brief energy from their strength ; all the miserable strangeness of his life is revealed to him at a glance , and he cries out passionately , `` Wakefield , Wakefield ! You are mad ! '' Perhaps he was so . The singularity of his situation must have so moulded him to itself that , considered in regard to his fellow-creatures and the business of life , he could not be said to possess his right mind . He had contrived -- or , rather , he had happened -- to dissever himself from the world , to vanish , to give up his place and privileges with living men without being admitted among the dead . The life of a hermit is nowise parallel to his . He was in the bustle of the city as of old , but the crowd swept by and saw him not ; he was , we may figuratively say , always beside his wife and at his hearth , yet must never feel the warmth of the one nor the affection of the other . It was Wakefield 's unprecedented fate to retain his original share of human sympathies and to be still involved in human interests , while he had lost his reciprocal influence on them . It would be a most curious speculation to trace out the effect of such circumstances on his heart and intellect separately and in unison . Yet , changed as he was , he would seldom be conscious of it , but deem himself the same man as ever ; glimpses of the truth , indeed , would come , but only for the moment , and still he would keep saying , `` I shall soon go back , '' nor reflect that he had been saying so for twenty years . I conceive , also , that these twenty years would appear in the retrospect scarcely longer than the week to which Wakefield had at first limited his absence . He would look on the affair as no more than an interlude in the main business of his life . When , after a little while more , he should deem it time to re-enter his parlor , his wife would clap her hands for joy on beholding the middle-aged Mr. Wakefield . Alas , what a mistake ! Would Time but await the close of our favorite follies , we should be young men -- all of us -- and till Doomsday . One evening , in the twentieth year since he vanished , Wakefield is taking his customary walk toward the dwelling which he still calls his own . It is a gusty night of autumn , with frequent showers that patter down upon the pavement and are gone before a man can put up his umbrella .
Pausing near the house , Wakefield discerns through the parlor-windows of the second floor the red glow and the glimmer and fitful flash XXXXX a comfortable fire .
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