ber, shouting "help," and so they ran from one
studio to another. Before she disappeared, Milita stopped on the last
doorsill, raising her gloved finger authoritatively:

"To-morrow, the rest. You mustn't forget. Really, papa, this is very
important. Good-by; I shall expect you to-morrow."

And she disappeared, leaving in her father some of the merriment with
which they had chased each other.

The twilight was gloomy. Renovales sat in front of his wife's portrait,
gazing at that extravagantly beautiful head which seemed to him the most
faithful of his portraits. His thoughts were lost in the shadow which
rose from the corners and enveloped the canvases. Only on the windows
trembled a pale, hazy light, cut across by the black lines of the
branches outside.

Alone--alone forever. He had the affection of that big girl who had just
gone away, merry, indifferent to everything which did not flatter her
youthful vanity, her healthy beauty. He had the devotion of his friend
Cotoner, who, like an old dog, could not live without seeing him, but
was incapable of wholly devoting his life to him, and shared it between
him and other friends, jealous of his Bohemian freedom.

And that was all. Very little.

On the verge of old age, he gazed at a cruel, reddish light which seemed
to irritate his eyes; the solitary, monotonous road which awaited
him--and at the end, death! No one was ignorant of that; it was the only
certainty, and still he had spent the greater part of his life without
thinking of it, without seeing it.

It was like one of those epidemics in distant lands which destroy
millions of lives. People talk of it as of a definite fact, but without
a start of horror, or a tremble of fear. "It is too far away; it will
take it a long time to reach us."

He had often named Death, but with his lips; his thoughts had not
grasped the meaning of the word, feeling that he was alive, bound to
life by his dreams and desires.

Death stood at the end of the road; no one could avoid meeting it, but
all are long in seeing it. Ambition, desire, love, the cruel animal
needs distracted man in his course toward it; they were like the woods,
valleys, blue sky and winding crystal streams which diverted the
traveler, hiding the boundary of the landscape, the fatal goal, the
black bottomless gorge to which all roads lead.

He was on the last days' march. The path of his life was growing
desolate and gloomy; the vegetation was dwindling;