as friends."

Andrew extended his long, thin, feverish hand, and, as Henley held it
for a moment, he started at the intense, vivid, abnormal personality its
grasp seemed to reveal. To collaborate with Trenchard was to collaborate
with a human volcano.

"And now for the germ of our book," he said, as the clock struck one.
"Where shall we find it?"

Trenchard leaned forward in his chair, with his hands pressed upon the
arms.

"Listen, and I will give it you," he said.

And, almost until the dawn and the wakening of the slumbering city,
Henley sat and listened, and forgot that his pipe was smoked out, and
that his feet were cold. Trenchard had strange powers, and could enthral
as he could also repel.

*****

"It is a weird idea, and it is very powerful," Henley said at last.
"But you stop short at the critical moment. Have you not devised a
_denouement?_"

"Not yet. That is where the collaboration will come in. You must help
me. We must talk it over. I am in doubt."

He got up and passed his hands nervously through his thick hair.

"My doubt has kept me awake so many nights!" he said, and his voice was
rather husky and worn.

Henley looked at him almost compassionately.

"How intensely you live in your fancies!"

"My fancies?" said Andrew, with a sudden harsh accent, and darting
a glance of curious watchfulness upon his friend. "My---- Yes, yes.
Perhaps I do. Perhaps I try to. Some people have souls that must escape
from their environment, their miserable life-envelope, or faint. Many
of us labour and produce merely to create an atmosphere in which we
ourselves may breathe for awhile and be happy. Damn this London, and
this lodging, and this buying bread with words! I must create for myself
an atmosphere. I must be always getting away from what is, even if I go
lower, lower. Ah! Well--but the _denouement_. Give me your impressions."

Henley meditated for awhile. Then he said; "Let us leave it. Let us get
to work; and in time, as the story progresses, it will seem inevitable.
We shall see it in front of us, and we shall not be able to avoid it.
Let us get to work"--he glanced at his watch and laughed--"or, rather,
let us get to bed. It is past four. This way madness lies. When we
collaborate, we will write in the morning. Our book shall be a book of
the dawn, and not of the darkness, despite its sombre theme."

"No, no; it must be a book of the darkness."

"Of the darkness, then, but written in the dawn