en worth living."

Horatio Camelford leant back with eyes fixed on the oaken ceiling. "It
is a mistake," said Horatio Camelford, "for the artist ever to marry."

The handsome Mrs. Camelford laughed good-naturedly. "The artist,"
remarked Mrs. Camelford, "from what I have seen of him would never know
the inside of his shirt from the outside if his wife was not there to
take it out of the drawer and put it over his head."

"His wearing it inside out would not make much difference to the world,"
argued her husband. "The sacrifice of his art to the necessity of
keeping his wife and family does."

"Well, you at all events do not appear to have sacrificed much, my boy,"
came the breezy voice of Dick Everett. "Why, all the world is ringing
with your name."

"When I am forty-one, with all the best years of my life behind me,"
answered the Poet. "Speaking as a man, I have nothing to regret. No one
could have had a better wife; my children are charming. I have lived
the peaceful existence of the successful citizen. Had I been true to my
trust I should have gone out into the wilderness, the only possible
home of the teacher, the prophet. The artist is the bridegroom of Art.
Marriage for him is an immorality. Had I my time again I should remain a
bachelor."

"Time brings its revenges, you see," laughed Mrs. Camelford. "At twenty
that fellow threatened to commit suicide if I would not marry him, and
cordially disliking him I consented. Now twenty years later, when I am
just getting used to him, he calmly turns round and says he would have
been better without me."

"I heard something about it at the time," said Mrs. Armitage. "You were
very much in love with somebody else, were you not?"

"Is not the conversation assuming a rather dangerous direction?" laughed
Mrs. Camelford.

"I was thinking the same thing," agreed Mrs. Everett. "One would imagine
some strange influence had seized upon us, forcing us to speak our
thoughts aloud."

"I am afraid I was the original culprit," admitted the Reverend
Nathaniel. "This room is becoming quite oppressive. Had we not better go
to bed?"

The ancient lamp suspended from its smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint,
gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The shadow of the old Cathedral
tower crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by
occasional beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of the
table sat a peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in full-bottomed