dishonesty, selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate,
theft, adultery, murder, dementia, insanity, inanity--these and death
and decay occupied his thoughts. There was no light anywhere. Only a
storm of evil and death. These ideas coupled with his troubles with
Angela, the fact that he could not work, the fact that he felt he had
made a matrimonial mistake, the fact that he feared he might die or go
crazy, made a terrible and agonizing winter for him.

Angela's attitude, while sympathetic enough, once the first storm of
feeling was over, was nevertheless involved with a substratum of
criticism. While she said nothing, agreed that she would forget, Eugene
had the consciousness all the while that she wasn't forgetting, that she
was secretly reproaching him and that she was looking for new
manifestations of weakness in this direction, expecting them and on the
alert to prevent them.

The spring-time in Alexandria, opening as it did shortly after they
reached there, was in a way a source of relief to Eugene. He had decided
for the time being to give up trying to work, to give up his idea of
going either to London or Chicago, and merely rest. Perhaps it was true
that he was tired. He didn't feel that way. He couldn't sleep and he
couldn't work, but he felt brisk enough. It was only because he couldn't
work that he was miserable. Still he decided to try sheer idleness.
Perhaps that would revive his wonderful art for him. Meantime he
speculated ceaselessly on the time he was losing, the celebrities he was
missing, the places he was not seeing. Oh, London, London! If he could
only do that.

Mr. and Mrs. Witla were immensely pleased to have their boy back with
them again. Being in their way simple, unsophisticated people, they
could not understand how their son's health could have undergone such a
sudden reverse.

"I never saw Gene looking so bad in all his life," observed Witla pere
to his wife the day Eugene arrived. "His eyes are so sunken. What in the
world do you suppose is ailing him?"

"How should I know?" replied his wife, who was greatly distressed over
her boy. "I suppose he's just tired out, that's all. He'll probably be
all right after he rests awhile. Don't let on that you think he's
looking out of sorts. Just pretend that he's all right. What do you
think of his wife?"

"She appears to be a very nice little woman," replied Witla. "She's
certainly devoted to him. I never thought Eugene would marry just tha