ddock, taking up the
book and declaiming his best--

'O thou hast lost celestial happiness,
Pleasures unspeakable, bliss without end.
Hadst thou affected sweet divinity,
Hell or the devil had no power on thee--
Hadst thou kept on that way. Faustus, behold
In what resplendent glory thou hadst sat,
On yonder throne, like those bright shining spirits,
And triumphed over hell! That hast thou lost;
And now, poor soul, must thy good angel leave thee;
The jaws of hell are open to receive thee.'

'Stop that; 'tis all cursed rant,' said Devereux. 'That is, the thing
itself; you make the most it.'

'Why, truly,' said Puddock, 'there are better speeches in it. But 'tis
very late; and parade, you know--I shall go to bed. And you--'

'No. I shall stay where I am.'

'Well, I wish you good-night, dear Devereux.'

'Good-night, Puddock'

And the plump little fellow was heard skipping down stairs, and the
hall-door shut behind him. Devereux took the play that Puddock had just
laid down, and read for a while with a dreary kind of interest. Then he
got up, and, I'm sorry to say, drank another glass of the same strong
waters.

'To-morrow I turn over a new leaf;' and he caught himself repeating
Puddock's snatch of Macbeth, 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.'

Devereux looked out, leaning on the window-sash. All was quiet now, as
if the rattle of a carriage had never disturbed the serene cold night.
The town had gone to bed, and you could hear the sigh of the river
across the field. A sadder face the moon did not shine upon.

'That's a fine play, Faustus--Marlowe,' he said. Some of the lines he
had read were booming funereally in his ear like a far-off bell. 'I
wonder whether Marlowe had run a wild course, like some of us
here--myself--and could not retrieve. That honest little mountebank,
Puddock, does not understand a word of it. I wish I were like Puddock.
Poor little fellow!'

So, after awhile, Devereux returned to his chair before the fire, and on
his way again drank of the waters of Lethe, and sat down, not
forgetting, but remorseful, over the fire.

'I'll drink no more to-night--there--curse me if I do.'

The fire was waxing low in the grate. 'To-morrow's a new day. Why, I
never made a resolution about it before. I can keep it. 'Tis easily
kept. To-morrow I begin.'

And with fists clenched in his pockets, he vowed his vow, with an oath
into the fire; and ten minutes were not past and over