she loved, right to join her life to his. And he went about
pressing the blade of this thought into his soul.

About four o'clock on the day of Mrs. Pendyce's visit to the studio a
letter was brought him by a page-boy.

"GREEN'S HOTEL,

"Thursday.

"DEAR GRIG,

"I have seen Helen Bellew, and have just come from George. We have all
been living in a bad dream. She does not love him--perhaps has never
loved him. I do not know; I do not wish to judge. She has given him up.
I will not trust myself to say anything about that. From beginning to
end it all seems so unnecessary, such a needless, cross-grained muddle.
I write this line to tell you how things really are, and to beg you, if
you have a moment to spare, to look in at George's club this evening and
let me know if he is there and how he seems. There is no one else that
I could possibly ask to do this for me. Forgive me if this letter pains
you.

"Your affectionate cousin,

"MARGERY PENDYCE."

To those with the single eye, the narrow personal view of all things
human, by whom the irony underlying the affairs of men is unseen and
unenjoyed, whose simple hearts afford that irony its most precious
smiles, who; vanquished by that irony, remain invincible--to these no
blow of Fate, no reversal of their ideas, can long retain importance.
The darts stick, quaver, and fall off, like arrows from chain-armour,
and the last dart, slipping upwards under the harness, quivers into the
heart to the cry of "What--you! No, no; I don't believe you're here!"

Such as these have done much of what has had to be done in this old
world, and perhaps still more of what has had to be undone.

When Gregory received this letter he was working on the case of a woman
with the morphia habit. He put it into his pocket and went on working.
It was all he was capable of doing.

"Here is the memorandum, Mrs. Shortman. Let them take her for six weeks.
She will come out a different woman."

Mrs. Shortman, supporting her thin face in her thin hand, rested her
glowing eyes on Gregory.

"I'm afraid she has lost all moral sense," she said. "Do you know, Mr.
Vigil, I'm almost afraid she never had any!"

"What do you mean?"

Mrs. Shortman turned her eyes away.

"I'm sometimes tempted to think," she said, "that there are such people.
I wonder whether we allow enough for that. When I was a girl in the
country I remember the daughter of our vicar, a very pretty creature.
There were dreadful