result. Still, your case is quite clear. You have overworked
yourself in the past, mentally and emotionally. You have sown unrest,
and must not be surprised if neurasthenia is the harvest thereof."

"Do you think--that I should go to some sanitarium?" the boy falteringly
asked.

"God forbid! Go to the seashore, somewhere where you can sleep and play.
Take your body along, but leave your brain behind--at least do not
take more of it with you than is necessary. The summer season in
Atlantic City has just begun. There, as everywhere in American society,
you will be much more welcome if you come without brains."

Reginald's half-bantering tone reassured Ernest a little. Timidly he
dared approach once more the strange event that had wrought such havoc
with his nervous equilibrium.

"How do you account for my strange obsession--one might almost call it a
mania?"

"If it could be accounted for it would not be strange."

"Can you suggest no possible explanation?"

"Perhaps a stray leaf on my desk a few indications of the plot, a
remark--who knows? Perhaps thought-matter is floating in the air.
Perhaps--but we had better not talk of it now. It would needlessly
excite you."

"You are right," answered Ernest gloomily, "let us not talk of it. But
whatever may be said, it is a marvellous play."

"You flatter me. There is nothing in it that you may not be able to do
equally well--some day."

"Ah, no," the boy replied, looking up to Reginald with admiration. "You
are the master."

XIII

Lazily Ernest stretched his limbs on the beach of Atlantic City. The
sea, that purger of sick souls, had washed away the fever and the fret
of the last few days. The wind was in his hair and the spray was in his
breath, while the rays of the sun kissed his bare arms and legs. He
rolled over in the glittering sand in the sheer joy of living.

Now and then a wavelet stole far into the beach, as if to caress him,
but pined away ere it could reach its goal. It was as if the enamoured
sea was stretching out its arms to him. Who knows, perhaps through the
clear water some green-eyed nymph, or a young sea-god with the tang of
the sea in his hair, was peering amorously at the boy's red mouth. The
people of the deep love the red warm blood of human kind. It is always
the young that they lure to their watery haunts, never the shrivelled
limbs that totter shivering to the grave.

Such fancies came to Ernest as he lay on the shore in his