water. I walk through the
crowded streets, men jostle me, and I seem to walk in a dead city. I felt
that I couldn't die in Paris. I wanted to die among my own people. I don't
know what hidden instinct drew me back at the last."

Philip knew of the woman Cronshaw had lived with and the two
draggle-tailed children, but Cronshaw had never mentioned them to him, and
he did not like to speak of them. He wondered what had happened to them.

"I don't know why you talk of dying," he said.

"I had pneumonia a couple of winters ago, and they told me then it was a
miracle that I came through. It appears I'm extremely liable to it, and
another bout will kill me."

"Oh, what nonsense! You're not so bad as all that. You've only got to take
precautions. Why don't you give up drinking?"

"Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if he's ready
to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the consequences. You
talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's the only thing I've got left
now. What do you think life would be to me without it? Can you understand
the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink
it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in
ineffable happiness. It disgusts you. You are a puritan and in your heart
you despise sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures are the most violent and
the most exquisite. I am a man blessed with vivid senses, and I have
indulged them with all my soul. I have to pay the penalty now, and I am
ready to pay."

Philip looked at him for a while steadily.

"Aren't you afraid?"

For a moment Cronshaw did not answer. He seemed to consider his reply.

"Sometimes, when I'm alone." He looked at Philip. "You think that's a
condemnation? You're wrong. I'm not afraid of my fear. It's folly, the
Christian argument that you should live always in view of your death. The
only way to live is to forget that you're going to die. Death is
unimportant. The fear of it should never influence a single action of the
wise man. I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that
I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself
from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but
I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still
my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing."

"D'you remember that Persian carpet you gave me?" asked Philip.

Cronshaw smiled his old, slow smi