pearance as
well as in health, in vitality. The last word rose in his brain to-day
for the first time. Could it be that this mortal lassitude might leave
him, neck and heel? That red blood would run in his veins once more?
To what end? He was none the less disgraced, none the less unfit to
aspire to the hand of Anne Percy. Not only would the world denounce
her if she yielded, but his own self-contempt was too deep to permit
him to take so much innocent loveliness to himself. But the thought
often maddened him, and to-day, as he looked up and caught her eyes
fixed upon him, suddenly to be withdrawn with a deep blush, he had to
control himself from abruptly leaving the church. More than once he
had suspected an interest, which in happier conditions might have
developed very rapidly. There was no doubt that his work meant more to
her than to any woman he had ever met, and he was convinced that she
avoided him both from a natural shrinking and because her strong
common sense compelled her to see him as he was, forbade her
imagination to transmute his battered husk into the semblance of what
was left of his better self. But she could love him. That was the
thought that sent the blood to his head and drove him from his pillow.

But it did not drive him to brandy. He had felt no temptation to drink
since he met her. It was true that before his final downfall he had
only felt the actual necessity of stimulant coincidently with the
awakening of his wondrous but strangely heavy muse; but during the
past five years he had burnt out tormenting thoughts and remorse with
alcohol, drinking but the more deeply when his familiar throbbed dully
and demanded release.

He could not look ahead. He had not the least idea what would be the
immediate result of the departure of Anne Percy, his return to the
loneliness of his home. With a reinvigorated body, and some renewal of
his faith in woman, he might resist temptation if he thought it worth
while. But the next poem? What then? He had never written a line of
serious work except under the influence of brandy. He knew that he
never should. And with nothing else to live for, to forswear the muse
to whom he was indebted for all the happiness he had ever known was
too much for God or man to ask of him.

He had been sitting tensely, and he suddenly leaned back and
endeavoured to invoke into his soul the peace that pervaded the house
of worship. The good clergyman was droning, fans and silken s