es closed, and he sank into lethargy.

When he came down from his bedroom on the following morning, Biffen was
informed that his friend had died between two and three o'clock. At the
same time he received a note in which Amy requested him to come and see
her late in the afternoon. He spent the day in a long walk along the
eastward cliffs; again the sun shone brilliantly, and the sea was
flecked with foam upon its changing green and azure. It seemed to him
that he had never before known solitude, even through all the years of
his lonely and sad existence.

At sunset he obeyed Amy's summons. He found her calm, but with the signs
of long weeping.

'At the last moment,' she said, 'he was able to speak to me, and you
were mentioned. He wished you to have all that he has left in his room
at Islington. When I come back to London, will you take me there and let
me see the room just as when he lived in it? Let the people in the house
know what has happened, and that I am responsible for whatever will be
owing.'

Her resolve to behave composedly gave way as soon as Harold's broken
voice had replied. Hysterical sobbing made further speech from her
impossible, and Biffen, after holding her hand reverently for a moment,
left her alone.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SUNNY WAY

On an evening of early summer, six months after the death of Edwin
Reardon, Jasper of the facile pen was bending over his desk, writing
rapidly by the warm western light which told that sunset was near. Not
far from him sat his younger sister; she was reading, and the book in
her hand bore the title, 'Mr Bailey, Grocer.'

'How will this do?' Jasper exclaimed, suddenly throwing down his pen.

And he read aloud a critical notice of the book with which Dora was
occupied; a notice of the frankly eulogistic species, beginning with:
'It is seldom nowadays that the luckless reviewer of novels can draw
the attention of the public to a new work which is at once powerful and
original;' and ending: 'The word is a bold one, but we do not hesitate
to pronounce this book a masterpiece.'

'Is that for The Current?' asked Dora, when he had finished.

'No, for The West End. Fadge won't allow anyone but himself to be lauded
in that style. I may as well do the notice for The Current now, as I've
got my hand in.'

He turned to his desk again, and before daylight failed him had produced
a piece of more cautious writing, very favourable on the whole, but with
reserves and s