. Out of the remote regions of boyhood they came, white
crests uplifted, merging and mingling in the waters of life. It
seemed to Mike that, like sea-weed, he and Frank had been washed
together, and they then had been washed apart. That was life, and
that was the result of life, that and nothing more. And of every
adventure Frank was the most distinctly realizable; all else, even
Lily, was a little shadow that had come and gone. John had lost
himself in religion, Frank had lost himself in his wife and child. To
lose yourself, that is the end to strive for; absorption in religion
or in the family. They had attained it, he had failed. All the love
and all the wealth fortune had poured upon him had not enabled him to
stir from or change that entity which he knew as Mike Fletcher. Ten
years ago he had not a shilling to his credit, to-day he had several
thousands, but the irreparable had not altered--he was still Mike
Fletcher. He had wandered over the world; he had lain in the arms of
a hundred women, and nothing remained of it all but Mike Fletcher.
There was apparently no escape; he was lashed to himself like the
convict to the oar. For him there was nothing but this oar, and all
the jewelry that had been expended upon it had not made it anything
but an oar. There was a curse upon it all.

He saw Frank's home--the little parlour with its bits of furniture,
scraggy and vulgar, but sweet with the presence of the wife and her
homely occupations; then the children--the chicks--cooing and
chattering, creating such hope and fond anxiety! Why then did he not
have wife and children? Of all worldly possessions they are the
easiest to obtain. Because he had created a soul that irreparably
separated him from these, the real and durable prizes of life; they
lay beneath his hands, but his soul said no; he desired, and was
powerless to take what he desired.

For a moment he stood, in puzzled curiosity, listening to the fate
that his thoughts were prophesying; then, as if in answer antiphonal,
terrible as the announcing of the chorus, came a quick thought, quick
and sharp as a sword, fatal as a sword set against the heart. He
strove to turn its point aside, he attempted to pass it by, but on
every side he met its point, though he reasoned in jocular and
serious mood. Then his courage falling through him like a stone
dropped into a well, he crossed the street, seeking the place Flossy
had told him of, and soon after saw her walking a l