of explanation, such as no
questioner would have the patience to listen to. One would need to take
into account the innumerable threads that have gone to making the
statement what it is. Do you think, for instance, if I answered yes or
no, in the present case, it would be true? If I deny what you
heard--does that tell you that I have longed with all my heart for it
to come to pass? Or say I admit it--I should need to unroll my life
before you to make you understand. No, there's no such thing as
absolute truth. If there were, the finest subtleties of existence would
be lost. There is neither positive truth nor positive untruth; life is
not so coarse-fibred as that. And only the grossest natures can be
satisfied with a blunt yes or no. Truth?--it is one of the many
miserable conventions the human brain has tortured itself with, and its
first principle is an utter lack of the imaginative faculties.--A DIEU!"

VI.

In the days that followed, Maurice threw himself heart and soul into
his work. He had lost ground of late, he saw it plainly now: after his
vigorous start, he had quickly grown slack. He was not, to-day, at the
stage he ought to be, and there was not a doubt but that Schwarz saw
it, too. Now that he, came to think of it, he had more than once been
aware of a studied coolness in the master's manner, of a rather
ostentatious indifference to the quality of the work he brought to the
class: and this he knew by hearsay to be Schwarz's attitude towards
those of his pupils in whom his interest was waning. If he, Maurice,
wished to regain his place in the little Pasha's favour, he must work
like a coal-heaver. But the fact was, the strenuous industry to which
he now condemned himself, was something of a relaxation after the
mental anxiety he had recently undergone; this striking of a black and
white keyboard was a pleasant, thought-deadening employment, and could
be got through, no matter what one's mood.--And so he rose early again,
and did not leave the house till he had five hours' practice behind him.

WER SICH DER EINSAMKEIT ERGIEBT, ACH, DER IST BALD ALLEIN: at the end
of a fortnight, Maurice smiled to find the words of Goethe's song
proved on himself. If he did not go to see his friends, none of them
came to him. Dove, who was at the stage of: "I told you so," in the
affair of the Cayhills, had found fresh listeners, who were more
sympathetic than Maurice could be expected to be: and Madeleine was up
t