own, whose stories had been confided to
him, whose fates he had shared; the anguish of irreparable failure, of
missed, untasted joy; agonies brutal or obscure, of nerve and
brain!--his mind and soul surrendered themselves to these impressions,
shook under the storm and scourge of them. His prayer was not his own;
it seemed to be the Spirit wrestling with Itself, and rending his own
weak life.

He drew nearer to Marsham, resting his forehead on the bed. The
firelight threw the shadow of his gaunt kneeling figure on the white
walls. And at last, after the struggle, there seemed to be an
effluence--a descending, invading love--overflowing his own
being--enwrapping the sufferer before him--silencing the clamor of a
weeping world. And the dual mind of the modern, even in Lankester,
wavered between the two explanations: "It is myself," said the critical
intellect, "the intensification and projection of myself." "_It is
God!_" replied the soul.

Marsham, meanwhile, as the morning drew on, and as the veil of morphia
between him and reality grew thinner, was aware of a dream slowly
drifting into consciousness--of an experience that grew more vivid as it
progressed. Some one was in the room; he moved uneasily, lifted his
head, and saw indistinctly a figure in the shadows standing near the
smouldering fire. It was not his servant; and suddenly his dream mingled
with what he saw, and his heart began to throb.

"Ferrier!" he called, under his breath. The figure turned, but in his
blindness and semi-consciousness he did not recognize it.

"I want to speak to you," he said, in the same guarded, half-whispered
voice. "Of course, I had no right to do it, but--"

His voice dropped and his eyelids closed.

Lankester advanced from the fire. He saw Marsham was not really awake,
and he dreaded to rouse him completely, lest it should only be to the
consciousness of pain. He stooped over him gently, and spoke his name.

"Yes," said Marsham, murmuring, without opening his eyes. "There's no
need for you to rub it in. I behaved like a beast, and Barrington--"

The voice became inarticulate again. The prostration and pallor of the
speaker, the feebleness of the tone--nothing could have been more
pitiful. An idea rushed upon Lankester. He again bent over the bed.

"Don't think of it any more," he said. "It's forgotten!"

A slight and ghastly smile showed on Marsham's lip as he lay with closed
eyes. "Forgotten! No, by Jove!" Then, after a