t. After so many years of exclusion, he was certain he
would feel the atmosphere of the place where he could work. And there he
would stay till he finished, till he produced the big thing that was in
him. Thus, regilded, he would return to her again. One more effort,
once more to feel his power, once more to hear the stimulating rush of
praise, then he would give it up again, quite content to sit beneath his
wine-glass till the end. But this first.

"So I put him down where I have told you, on a lonely island, somewhat
north of the equator, ten thousand miles away from Her. Wistfully, he
said it was quite the right spot; he could feel it. So we helped him,
the China boys and I, to build a little hut, up on stilts, thatched with
palm-leaves. Very desolate it is. On all sides the burnished ocean, hot
and breathless, and the warm, moist heat close around. Still and
stifling. Like a blanket, dense, enveloping. But he said it was the
spot. I don't know. He has been there now three years. He said he could
do it there, if ever. From time to time I stop there if the passengers
are willing for a day or two's delay. He looks very old now and very
thin, but he always say it's all right. Soon, very soon now, the
manuscript will be ready; next time I stop, perhaps. Once I came upon
him sobbing. Landing early in the morning--slipped ashore and found him
sobbing, head in arms and shoulders shaking. It was early in the
morning, and I think he'd sobbed all night. Somehow I think it was not
for the gift he'd lost but for her.

"But he says over and over again that it is the right spot, the very
right place in the world for such as he. Told me that I must not mind
seeing him so lonely, so apparently depressed. That it was nothing. Just
the Tropics, and being so far way, and perhaps thinking a little too
much of things that did not concern his work. But the work would surely
come on. Moods came on him from time to time that he recognized were
quite the right moods in which to work, in which to produce great
things. His genius was surely ripe now; he must just concentrate. Some
day, very shortly, there would be a great rush; he would feel himself
charged again with the old, fine fire. He would produce the great work
of his life. He felt it coming on; it would be finished next time I
called.

"This is the next time. Shall we go?" asked the captain.

Accordingly, within a day or two, the small coastwise steamer dropped
her anchor in a sha