ttachments,
all broken friendships. Certainly, according to tradition, it seemed as
if I ought now to feel some sort of emotion at hearing the fate of a
man who had once held so large a share of my affections.

There ought to have been some touch of sentimental sadness in my
thoughts, some recollections of first days together, and so on. But
there was none. By that night's work he had made himself as nothing to
me henceforward.

I wondered in a desultory way whether the sudden complete annihilation
of an emotion in the human heart in this way showed the hardness of the
heart, or the magnitude of the offence, or the poor quality of the
emotion itself; and then I was roused by Dick's voice saying Good-night
to the other fellows, and he and I were left by the window alone.

He looked across at me, and said.--

"If you would like to see Howard, I believe Thompson could get you
admission any time."

His voice was low and sympathetic.

I raised my eyebrows and said,--

"What should I want to see him for?"

Dick looked surprised, and then said, hesitatingly,--

"Surely you were very great friends at one time!"

I laughed.

"Yes," I answered, "but there is a great deal in that at one time!"

A few days later my father pointed out the announcement of Howard's
death in The Times as we sat at breakfast.

I nodded.

"Yes; I heard at the Club he was dying."

"What was it? They don't say here."

"No," I said; "they would not."

"What was it?"

"Excess."

We neither said anything further with reference to it, but Howard's
death was in both our thoughts, and as we got up from the table he
said, suddenly,--

"There's a great thing in having a quiet, moderate nature, or at least
self-control," and then he added afterwards, as if struck by a sudden
amending thought, "Well, of course, that comes virtually to the same
thing."

"Does it?" I thought. "By Jove, not to the man himself!"

"Would you think, then," I asked, with a smile, looking across the rug
at him as we stood by the fire, "that the existence of a lion-tamer was
quite the same as that of a maiden lady who kept cats?"

He laid down his paper suddenly and stared at me.

"I don't understand--I--you don't mean that you"--

"I mean," I said, "that it's extremely difficult to see the best
course. Howard has just died, raving mad, for giving way to his
impulses; I may die, raving mad, for controlling mine."

He looked at me apprehensively. "I am sorr