pt from the degradation of material
need; all his doings had prospered, save in that little matter of his
overtaxed health, and it had grown his habit to map the future with a
generous hand, saying: Thus and thus will I take my conquering course.
Knowing love for the first time, he had met with love in return, love to
the height of his desire, and with a wave of the hand he had swept the
trivial obstacles from his path. Now that the very sum of his exultant
youth offered itself like a wine-cup to his lips, comes forth the
mysterious hand and spills relentlessly that divine draught. See how he
turns, with the blaze of royal indignation on his brow I Who of gods or
men has dared thus to come between him and his bliss? He is not wont to
be so thwarted; he demands that the cup shall be refilled and brought
again; only when mocking laughter echoes round him, when it is but too
plain that the spirits no longer serve him, that where he most desires
his power is least, does his resentment change by cold degrees to that
chill anguish of the abandoned soul, which pays the debt of so many an
hour of triumph. For the moment, words of kindness and sustaining hope
might seem to avail him; but there is the night waiting in ambush for
his weakness, that season of the sun's silence, when the body denuded of
vestment typifies the spirit's exposure to its enemies. Let him live
through his fate-imposed trial in that torture-chamber of ancient
darkness. He will not come forth a better man, though perchance a wiser;
wisdom and goodness are from of old at issue. Henceforth he will have
eyes for many an ugly spot in his own nature, hidden till now by the
veil of happiness. Do not pity him; congratulate him rather that the
inevitable has been so long postponed.

He put on a bold face at breakfast next morning, for he could not
suppose that Mrs. Baxendale would feel any obligation to keep his secret
from her husband, and it was not in his character to play the knight of
the dolorous visage. You saw the rings round his eyes, but he was able
to discuss the latest electioneering intelligence, and even to utter one
or two more of those shrewd remarks by which he had lately been proving
that politics were not unlikely to demand more of his attention some
day. But he was glad when he could get away to the drawing-room, to
await Mrs. Baxendale's coming. He tried to read in a volume of Boswell
which lay out; at other times the book was his delight, now i