esolve the complicated problem of the plate, the sausage, the knife and
the fork.

"You've got your knife in the wrong hand," said Edwin impatiently, as to
a wilful child.

Darius stared at the knife and at the fork, and he then sighed, and his
sigh meant, "This business is beyond me!" Then he endeavoured to
substitute the knife for the fork, but he could not.

"See," said Edwin, leaning over. "Like this!" He took the knife, but
Darius would not loose it. "No, leave go!" he ordered. "Leave go! How
can I show you if you don't leave go?"

Darius dropped both knife and fork with a clatter. Edwin put the knife
into his right hand, and the fork into his left; but in a moment they
were wrong again. At first Edwin could not believe that his father was
not indulging deliberately in naughtiness.

"Shall I cut it up for you, father?" Maggie asked, in a mild,
persuasive tone.

Darius pushed the plate towards her.

When she had cut up the sausage, she said--

"There you are! I'll keep the knife. Then you can't get mixed up."

And Darius ate the sausage with the fork alone. His intelligence had
failed to master the original problem presented to it. He ate steadily
for a few moments, and then the tears began to roll down his cheek, and
he ate no more.

This incident, so simple, so unexpected, and so dramatic, caused the
most acute distress. And its effect was disconcerting in the highest
degree. It reminded everybody that what Darius suffered from was
softening of the brain. For long he had been a prisoner in the house
and garden. For long he had been almost mute. And now, just after a
visit which usually acted upon him as a tonic, he had begun to lose the
skill to feed himself. Little by little he was demonstrating, by his
slow declension from it, the wonder of the standard of efficiency
maintained by the normal human being.

Edwin and Maggie avoided one another, even in their glances. Each
affected the philosophical, seeking to diminish the significance of the
episode. But neither succeeded. Of the two years allotted to Darius,
one had gone. What would the second be?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOUR.

In his bedroom, after tea, Edwin fought against the gloomy influence,
but uselessly. The inherent and appalling sadness of existence
enveloped and chilled him. He gazed at the rows of his books. He had
done no regular reading of late. Why read?