* * * * *

At that point Judith had to pause, because a mist formed over her eyes
and would not let her see. And the next words brought a lump into her
throat, which choked and hurt.

* * * * *

"... I hoped much--no, _hope_ is hardly the word for what I wanted--from
you. And of course--as I never for an instant doubted I would--I failed
there. Now there's nothing left. I wonder what the next instalment of
the yarn will bring. Do the gods, think you, punish failure as men do?

"But I wander. (My speculations to the landlady regarding reincarnation
have resulted in her frantic appeal to the doctor, with a bottle of
something, in consequence, by my side. That's the scientific way of
solving the problem of immortality.) However, I'm not writing you now to
oblige you to join with me in conjecturing as to what lies in the Other
Room. It's this one, and your place in it that troubles me now.

"I just want to express a sixty-first second sort of a hope that you
won't lose interest in _The Dispatch_. But even as I write, I know that
you, being quite human, in all probability will. Strangely enough I
have a feeling that Roger will be more likely to carry it through than
you will. Men can play baseball all their lives, when six weeks of
crusading is more than plenty. He'll go through with it because it's a
sporting proposition.

"But you--well, I guess one has to starve before he becomes a real
revolutionary. You'll have to pay the price the gods demand for a full
stomach, by being a trimmer all your days. That doesn't mean you won't
do big things. You will, and _The Dispatch_ will be only one of them.
But you won't do them quite as I--being more or less insane--would have
you do them. Still, if you were poor, and therefore understood life as I
understand it, you couldn't do anything at all. So I'm satisfied.

"This is all queer stuff and hard to understand. But remember, to the
natural eccentricities of my nature are added the hallucinations of
approaching dissolution.

"Keep on with the paper as long as you can, and as bravely as you can.
Don't yield to the discouragement which will always be just over your
shoulder, because it accomplishes little. Never forget that you're only
a link in a chain. If you keep your link sound you've done about all you
can do. To you life is long, and the world putty in your hands. But
after all, you're only an atom on the ever