by a general slovenliness, and an obvious disregard for any sort of
order.

"I am afraid, Drage," he said gently, "that things have not gone well
with you."

"You are quite right," the man answered bitterly. "They have not! They
have gone very wrong indeed; and I have no one to blame but myself."

"I am sorry," Matravers said. "You are an invalid, too, are you not?"

"I am worse than an invalid," the man on the couch groaned. "I am a
prisoner on my back, most likely for ever; curse it! I have had a
paralytic stroke. I can't think why I couldn't die! It's hard
lines!--damned hard lines! I wish I were dead twenty times a day! I am
alone here from morning to night, and not a soul to speak to. If it
wasn't for Freddy I should jolly soon end it!"

"The little boy's mother?" Matravers ventured, with bowed head.

"She left me--years ago. I don't know that I blame her, particularly.
Sit down, if you will, for a bit. I never have a visitor, and it does
me good to talk."

Matravers took the only unoccupied chair, and drew it back a little
into the darker part of the room.

"You remember me then, Drage," he remarked. "Yet it is a long time
since our college days."

"I knew you directly I heard your voice, sir," the man answered. "It
seemed to take me back to a night many years ago--I want you to let
me remind you of it. I should like you to know that I never forgot it.
We were at St. John's then; you were right above me--in a different
world altogether. You were a leader amongst the best of them, and I
was a hanger-on amongst the worst. You were in with the gentlemen set
and the reading set. Neither of them would have anything to do with
me--and they were quite right. I was what they thought me--a cad. I'd
no head for work, and no taste for anything worth doing, and I wasn't
a gentleman, and hadn't sense to behave like one. I'd no right to have
been at the University at all, but my poor old dad would have me go.
He had an idea that he could make a gentleman of me. It was a
mistake!"

Matravers moved slightly in his chair,--he was suffering tortures.

"Is it worth while recalling all these things?" he asked quietly.
"Life cannot be a success for all of us; yet it is the future, and not
the past."

"I have no future," the man interrupted doggedly; "no future here, or
in any other place. I have got my deserts. I wanted to remind you of
that night when you came to see me in my rooms, after I'd been sent
down for being