e letter many times. "The Whisperer ... would try
to uprear a new creed--his own." Paul glanced at a bulky typescript
which lay upon the table near his hand. _The Key_ was complete and he
had intended to deliver it in person to Bassett later the same morning.
Strange doubts and wild surmises began to beat upon his brain and he
shrank within himself, contemplative and somewhat fearful. A
consciousness of great age crept over him like a shadow. He seemed to
have known all things and to have wearied of all things, to have
experienced everything and to have found everything to be nothing. Long,
long ago he had striven as he was striving now to plant an orchard in
the desert of life that men might find rest and refreshment on their
journey through pathless time. Long, long ago he had doubted and
feared--and failed. In some dim grove of the past he had revealed the
secret of eternal rebirth to white-robed philosophers; in some vague
sorrow that reached out of the ages and touched his heart he seemed to
recognise that death had been his reward, and that he had welcomed death
as a friend.

So completely did this mood absorb him that he started nervously to find
Jules Thessaly standing beside his chair. Thessaly had walked in from
the garden and he carried a flat-crowned black felt hat in his hand.

"If I have intruded upon a rich vein of reflection forgive me."

Paul turned and looked at the strong massive figure outlined against the
bright panel of the open window. The influence of that mood of age
lingered; he felt lonely and apprehensive. He noticed a number of empty
flower vases about the room. Yvonne used to keep them always freshly
filled. He wondered when she had ceased to do so and why. "You have
rescued me from a mood that was almost suicidal, Thessaly. A horrible
recognition of the futility of striving oppresses me this morning. I
seem to be awaiting a blow which I know myself powerless to avert. If we
were at your place I should prescribe a double 'Fra Diavolo' but,
failing this, I think something with a fizz in it must suffice. Will you
give the treatment a trial?"

"With pleasure. Let it be a stirrup-cup, or, as our northern friends
have it, a _doch-an-dorroch_."

Paul stood up and stared at Thessaly. "Do I understand you to mean that
you are about to set out upon a journey?"

"I am, Mario. Like Eugene Sue's tedious Jew, I am cursed with a lack of
repose. I sail for New York to-morrow or the following day."