k a match, and lit his pipe.

"It seems true to me--when I am writing it," he answered. "I have been
writing it these last two days and nights when I have been away, and now
I can go forward, if you agree to the new development which I suggest."

It was night. He had been absent for some days, and had just returned.
Henley, meanwhile, had been raging because the book had come to a
complete standstill. He himself could do nothing at it, since they had
reached a dead-lock, and had not talked over any new scenes, or mutually
decided upon the turn events were now to take. He felt rather cross and
sore.

"_You_ can go forward," he said: "yes, after your holiday. You might at
least tell me when you are going."

"I never know myself," Andrew said rather sadly.

He was looking very white and worn, and his eyes were heavy.

"But I have thought some fresh material out. My idea is this: The man
now becomes such a complete slave to the morphia habit that concealment
of the fact is scarcely possible. And, indeed, he ceases to desire to
conceal it from the woman. The next scene will be an immensely powerful
one--that in which he tells her the truth."

"You do not think it would be more natural if she found it out against
his will? It seems to me that what he had concealed so long he would try
to hide for ever."

"No," Andrew said emphatically; "that would not be so."

"But----"

"Look here," the other interrupted, with some obvious irritability; "let
me tell you what I have conceived, and raise any objections afterwards
if you wish to raise them. He would tell her the truth himself. He
would almost glory in doing so. That is the nature of the man. We have
depicted his pride in his own powers, his temptation, his struggle--his
fall, as it would be called----"

"As it would be called."

"Well, well!--his fall, then. And now comes the moment when his fall is
complete. He bends the neck finally beneath his tyrant, and then he goes
to the woman and he tells her the truth."

"But explain matters a little more. Do you mean that he is glad, and
tells almost with triumph; or that he is appalled, and tells her with
horror?"

"Ah! That is where the power of the scene lies. He is appalled. He is
like a man plunged at last into hell without hope of future redemption.
He tells her the truth with horror."

"And she?"

"It is she who triumphs. Look here: it will be like this."

Andrew leaned forward across the table that stood