Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.—Shakespeare.

It was the 9th of November, and Lord Mayor’s Show day—a festival of the first class at all the medical schools of the metropolis. On great occasions like this, the spirits of all medicos run high. They drink deeply, sally forth with knobby sticks, and prepare for multiform scrimmages. On this particular day word had been sent round to all the medical schools that a raid was to be made on the “Frivolity” Music Hall, Oxford Street, and Medicine expected every hospital man to do his duty. The rendezvous was at Piccadilly Circus, the time ten o’clock. At the appointed hour the locality was crowded with active, healthy young fellows, armed with their characteristic bludgeons; and the word was quickly passed to link arms and rush up Regent Street, driving everybody before them. No sooner suggested than done; right across the street they formed, from house-front to house-front, in triple rows. Of course everybody got out of their way, and gave a wide berth to them, and the young clerks and shopmen, who were delighted to join in the spree, and willing to undergo the indignity of being arrested for the pleasure of being suspected and perhaps described in the papers as medical students. As it is not the cowl that makes the monk, these vain persons do not always deceive either the public or the magistrates before whom they appear. The music hall was quickly reached, with little interference on the part of the police who had not previously got notice of the raid. The turnstiles were upset or broken down, the money-takers roughly handled, and the spacious “hall of splendour and realm of dazzling light,” as one of the fellows called it, was taken by storm; the glasses and crockery at the refreshment bars were smashed, the looking-glass on the walls demolished, the marble tables overthrown, and the unfortunate portion of the audience, which did not succeed in escaping, soon had cause to regret the excessive demonstrativeness of the followers of medicine. Of course, when the place was half wrecked, the police came in force, and restored order. Some half-dozen of the rioters were arrested, and duly appeared before the magistrate, received their lecture on the manner they disgraced their noble calling, and were let off with fines. But the event of the night was the disappearance of Elsworth. No one knew what had become of him; he was not among the arrested, nor had he turned up at the hospital or his lodgings. No one had seen him after the row at the “Frivolity,” and all sorts of alarming rumours began to circulate as to his absence. He was last remembered in the heat of battle in the music hall, rallying his forces, crying, “St. Bernard’s to the rescue!” when the police had captured one of his heroes. After that no one saw him more. Had he met with an accident? Had he been attacked and robbed, and then killed by some of the bad characters in Seven Dials close by? No one could say. A week passed, and though inquiries had been made at every possible place, and all his friends communicated with, nothing whatever could be heard of him. The fellows began to rake up every bit of his conversation they could recollect. As we have already narrated, at Oxford he was deeply religious, but his medical studies had imbued him with serious doubts on all the distinctive dogmas of Christianity, till at last the atmosphere of the dissecting-room and the physiological laboratory seemed to have weakened his faith in God, the soul, and the future life. It was the fact that this state of things often obtained at St Bernard’s. All its professors but one or two were agnostics, or even atheists. Some were serious, thoughtful men, who grieved they could not believe; while others, as far as they dared, made a jest of the most sacred themes. Young men—and especially young medical men—are prone to copy very closely the speech and the modes of thought of those who are in authority over them, and the school took its tone from the many brilliant men of science on its teaching staff. The microscope, the test-tube, and the scalpel had dissipated much of young Elsworth’s faith, and he had not cared to conceal it. Had he committed suicide? Why should he? He was not embarrassed; he had ample means and wealthy friends. Nor was he involved in any intrigues, as far as could be known; and as he was of the liveliest and most optimistic turn of mind, the idea was scouted by those who knew him best.