call she would come, she had (all unconsciously, of course) become
more than my beloved. She became for me the actual embodiment, the
incarnate end, aim, and reward of all the strivings of my lonely life,
from the night of my flight from St. Peter's Orphanage down to that
very day. In my rapt contemplation of her, of the personality which
enthralled me far, far more than her beautiful person could, I smiled
over recollection of my bitter struggles in London slums, of the
heart-racking anxiety and grinding humiliation of life with poor
Fanny. I smiled happily at that squalid vista as at some trifling
inconvenience by the way, too small to be remembered as an obstacle in
my path toward the all-sufficing and radiant peace of union with
Cynthia.

'Now I see why all my life has been worth while,' I told myself on the
eve of the clumsy, brutal blow of Fate's hand that had for ever robbed
me of Cynthia.

In the living, the end had sometimes seemed too hopelessly far off to
justify the wearing strain of the means. There had been so little
refreshment by the way. But with Cynthia's promise there had come to
me an all-embracing certainty that my whole life had been justified;
that the end and reward of all my struggles was actually in my hands;
that I now had arrived, and was about to step definitely out from the
ranks of the striving, unsatisfied, hungry outliers, into the serene
company of those whose faces shine with the light of assured
happiness; of those who fight and struggle no longer; for the reason
that they have found their allotted place in life, and are at anchor
within the haven of their ambitions.

I may have been very greatly to blame in my passionate wooing of
another man's affianced wife; but, at least, I believe that my loss of
Cynthia was a far greater and more crushing loss for me than the loss
of any woman could possibly have been for Charles Barthrop. For me,
she had stood for all life held that was desirable--the sum and plexus
of my aims. For Barthrop there were his keenly relished sports and
pastimes, his host of friends, his family, his luxurious and well-defined
place in the world--not to mention the city of London.

V

When I left the spacious purlieus of Salisbury, it was to engage
chambers--bedroom, sitting-room, and bathroom--in a remodelled adjunct
to one of the Inns of Court. Here my arrangement was that a simple
breakfast should be served to me each day in my sitting-room, and that