king up of
all that was dear to me in life. It's not like failure in an ordinary
business. It has been infinitely more than a business to me. It has been a
religion. It is still. That's why my soul refuses to grasp facts and
figures."

He went on, feeling a relief in pouring out his heart to one who could
understand. To no one had he thus spoken. With an expansive nature he had
the strong man's pride. To the world in general he turned the conquering
face of Clem Sypher, the Friend of Humanity, of Sypher's Cure. To Septimus
alone had he shown the man in his desperate revolt against defeat. The
lines around his mouth deepened into lines of pain, and pain lay behind his
clear eyes and in the knitting of his brows.

"I believed the Almighty had put an instrument for the relief of human
suffering into my hands. I dreamed great dreams. I saw all the nations of
the earth blessing me. I know I was a damned fool. So are you. So is every
visionary. So are the apostles, the missionaries, the explorers--all who
dream great dreams--all damned fools, but a glorious company all the same.
I'm not ashamed to belong to it. But there comes a time when the apostle
finds himself preaching to the empty winds, and the explorer discovers his
El Dorado to be a barren island, and he either goes mad or breaks his
heart, and which of the two I'm going to do I don't know. Perhaps both."

"Zora Middlemist will be back soon," said Septimus. "She is coming by the
White Star line, and she ought to be in Marseilles by the end of next
week."

"She writes me that she may winter in Egypt. That is why she chose the
White Star line," said Sypher.

"Have you told her what you've told me?"

"No," said Sypher, "and I never shall while there's a hope left. She knows
it's a fight. But I tell her--as I have told my damned fool of a soul--that
I shall conquer. Would you like to go to her and say, 'I'm done--I'm
beaten'? Besides, I'm not."

He turned and poked the fire, smashing a great lump of coal with a stroke
of his muscular arm as if it had been the skull of the Jebusa Jones dragon.
Septimus twirled his small mustache and his hand inevitably went to his
hair. He had the scared look he always wore at moments when he was coming
to a decision.

"But you would like to see Zora, wouldn't you?" he asked.

Sypher wheeled round, and the expression on his face was that of a prisoner
in the Bastille who had been asked whether he would like a summer banquet
ben