n from Reardon, he went his
way to deposit the brown-paper parcel at the publishers'. The clerk who
received it from his hands probably thought that the author might have
chosen a more respectable messenger.

Two days later, early in the evening, the friends were again enjoying
each other's company in Reardon's room. Both were invalids, for Biffen
had of course caught a cold from his exposure in shirt-sleeves on the
roof, and he was suffering from the shock to his nerves; but the thought
that his novel was safe in the hands of publishers gave him energy to
resist these influences. The absence of the pipe, for neither had any
palate for tobacco at present, was the only external peculiarity of
this meeting. There seemed no reason why they should not meet frequently
before the parting which would come at Christmas; but Reardon was in a
mood of profound sadness, and several times spoke as if already he were
bidding his friend farewell.

'I find it difficult to think,' he said, 'that you will always struggle
on in such an existence as this. To every man of mettle there does come
an opportunity, and it surely is time for yours to present itself. I
have a superstitious faith in "Mr Bailey." If he leads you to triumph,
don't altogether forget me.'

'Don't talk nonsense.'

'What ages it seems since that day when I saw you in the library at
Hastings, and heard you ask in vain for my book! And how grateful I was
to you! I wonder whether any mortal ever asks for my books nowadays?
Some day, when I am well established at Croydon, you shall go to
Mudie's, and make inquiry if my novels ever by any chance leave the
shelves, and then you shall give me a true and faithful report of the
answer you get. "He is quite forgotten," the attendant will say; be sure
of it.'

'I think not.'

'To have had even a small reputation, and to have outlived it, is a
sort of anticipation of death. The man Edwin Reardon, whose name was
sometimes spoken in a tone of interest, is really and actually dead. And
what remains of me is resigned to that. I have an odd fancy that it will
make death itself easier; it is as if only half of me had now to die.'

Biffen tried to give a lighter turn to the gloomy subject.

'Thinking of my fiery adventure,' he said, in his tone of dry
deliberation, 'I find it vastly amusing to picture you as a witness at
the inquest if I had been choked and consumed. No doubt it would have
been made known that I rushed upstairs t