his little fact added to his sense of
solitude.

He thought at first he would get up and walk back to the city in the
dark. An intense and passionate longing seized him to be among living
men. He took a few steps down the road. The unwholesome dust blew up
through the dark against his face. He found himself so tired that he
concluded to go back to the hut. He would sleep, and start in the
morning with the break of the dawn. He should be glad to see the faces
of his kind again, even though the stir of welcome and the light of
trust were gone out of them for him. They lived, they breathed, they
spoke. He was tired of death and solitude.

He groped back into the hut. The oil was low, and he could not relight
the lamp. He threw himself in the dark upon his bed.

He slept until late in the morning, heavily. When he waked, the birds
were shrill in the hot air, and the sun glared in.

"I will go now," he said, aloud. "I am glad I can go," and crept to
his feet.

He took two steps--staggered--and fell back. He lay for some moments,
stricken more with astonishment than alarm. His first words were:

"Lord God! After all--after all I've gone through--Lord God Almighty,
if You'll believe it--I've _got it_!"

This was on Wednesday morning. Night fell, but no one came.
Thursday--but outside the hut no step stirred the parched, white dust.
Friday--Saturday--no voice but his own moaning broke upon the sick
man's straining ear.

His professional experience gave him an excruciating foresight of his
symptoms, and their result presented itself to him with horrible
distinctness. As one by one he passed through the familiar conditions
whose phases he had watched in other men a hundred times, he would
have given his life for a temporary ignorance. His trained imagination
had little mercy on him. He weighed his chances, and watched his fate
with the sad exactness of knowledge.

As the days passed, and no one came to him, he was aware of not being
able to reason with himself clearly about his solitude. Growing weak,
he remembered the averted faces of the people for whom he had labored,
and whom he had loved. In the stress of his pain their estranged eyes
gazed at him. He felt that he was deserted because he was distrusted.
Patient as he was, this seemed hard.

"They did not care enough for me to miss me," he said, aloud, gently.
"I suppose I was not worth it. I had been in prison. I was a wicked
man. I must not blame them."

And