one liked to question him
about his time away; all that he said--and bitterly--was: 'They wouldn't
let me work!' But the second evening after his return there came a knock
on the door of the little room where the 'Powers' were sitting after
supper, and there stood Gray, long and shadowy, holding on to the
screen, smoothing his jaw-bone with the other hand, turning eyes like a
child's from face to face, while his helpless lips smiled. One of the
'Powers' said: 'What do you want, my friend?'

'_Je voudrais aller a Paris, voir ma petite fille._'

'Yes, yes; after the war. Your _petite fille_ is not in Paris, you
know.'

'_Non?_' The smile was gone; it was seen too plainly that Gray was not
as he had been. The access of vigour, stirring of new strength,
'improvement' had departed, but the beat of it, while there, must have
broken him, as the beat of some too-strong engine shatters a frail
frame. His 'improvement' had driven him to his own undoing. With the
failure of his pilgrimage he had lost all hope, all 'egoism.'... It
takes an eye, indeed, to tell salvation from damnation! He was truly
Jetsam now--terribly thin and ill and sad; and coughing. Yet he kept the
independence of his spirit. In that bitter cold, nothing could prevent
him stripping to the waist to wash, nothing could keep him lying in bed,
or kill his sense of the proprieties. He would not wear his overcoat--it
was invalidish; he would not wear his new yellow boots and keep his feet
dry, except on Sundays: '_Ils sont bons!_' he would say. And before he
would profane their goodness, his old worn-out shoes had to be reft from
him. He would not admit that he was ill, that he was cold, that he
was--anything. But at night, a 'Power' would be awakened by groans, and,
hurrying to his room, find him huddled nose to knees, moaning. And now,
every evening, as though craving escape from his own company, he would
come to the little sitting-room, and stand with that deprecating smile,
smoothing his jaw-bone, until some one said: 'Sit down, my friend, and
have some coffee.' '_Merci, ma soeur--il est bon, il est bon!_' and
down he would sit, and roll a cigarette with his long fingers, tapering
as any artist's, while his eyes fixed themselves intently on anything
that moved. But soon they would stray off to another world, and he would
say thickly, sullenly, fiercely: '_Les Boches--ils vont en payer
cher--les Boches!_' On the walls were some trophies from the war of
'seven