nsition; the middle years were opening before him.
The tears he shed for his friend were due in part to the poignant
perception of utter severance with boyhood. But a few weeks ago,
talking with Mrs. Hannaford, he could revive the spirit of those old
days at Geneva, feel his identity with the Piers Otway of that time. It
would never be within his power again. He might remember, but memory
showed another than himself.

A note from John Jacks summoned him to Queen's Gate. Not till
afterwards did he understand that Mr. Jacks' real motive in sending for
him was to get light upon the rupture between Arnold and Miss Derwent.
Piers' astonishment at what he heard caused his friend to quit the
subject.

In the night that followed, Piers for the first time in his life felt
the possibility of base action. The experience has come to all men,
and, whatever the result, always leaves its mark. Looking at the fact
of Irene's broken engagement, he could explain it only in one way; the
cause must be Mrs. Hannaford--the doubt as to her behaviour, the
threatened scandal. Idle to attempt surmises as to the share of either
side in what had come about; the difference had been sufficiently grave
to part them. And this parting was to him a joy which shook his whole
being. He could have raised a song of exultation.

And in his hands lay complete evidence of the dead woman's
guiltlessness. To produce it was possibly to reconcile Arnold Jacks and
Irene. Viewed by his excited mind, the possible became certain; he
evolved a whole act of drama between those two, turning on prejudices,
doubts, scruples natural in their position; he saw the effect of their
enlightenment. Was it a tempting thought, that he could give Irene back
again into her bridegroom's arms.

It brought sweat to his forehead; it shook him with the fierce torture
of a jealous imagination. He fortified base suggestion by the natural
revolt of his flesh. Once had he passed through the fire; to suffer
that ordeal again was beyond human endurance. Irene was free. He paced
the room, repeating wildly that Irene was free. And the mere fact of
her freedom proved that she did not love the man--so it seemed to him,
in his subordination of every motive to that passionate impulse. To him
it brought no hope--what of that! Irene did not belong to another man.

The fire needed stirring. As he broke the black surface of coal, a
flame shot up, red, lambent, a serpent's tongue. It had a voice; it