equestered and shadowed the fountain. They
grew along the walls, forming a quiet dell, in whose garden silence
the dripping fountain sang its song of falling water. Light and shade
fell picturesquely about the steps descending to the gardens, and the
parapeted buildings fell in black shadows upon the sward, and stood
sharp upon the moon illuminated blue. Mike sat beneath the
plane-trees, and the suasive silence, sweetly tuned by the dripping
water, murmured in his soul dismal sorrowings. Over the cup, whence
issued the jet that played during the day, the water flowed. There
were there the large leaves of some aquatic plant, and Mike wondered
if, had the policeman not rescued the girl, she would now be in
perfect peace, instead of dragged before a magistrate and forced to
promise to bear her misery.

"A pretty little tale," he thought, and he saw her floating in
shadowy water in pallor and beauty, and reconciliation with nature.
"Why see another day? I must die very soon, why not at once?
Thousands have grieved as I am grieving in this self-same place, have
asked the same sad questions. Sitting under these ancient walls young
men have dreamed as I am dreaming--no new thoughts are mine. For five
thousand years man has asked himself why he lives. Five thousand
years have changed the face of the world and the mind of man; no
thought has resisted the universal transformation of thought, save
that one thought--why live? Men change their gods, but one thought
floats immortal, unchastened by the teaching of any mortal gods. Why
see another day? why drink again the bitter cup of life when we may
drink the waters of oblivion?"

He walked through Pump Court slowly, like a prisoner impeded by the
heavy chain, and at every step the death idea clanked in his brain.
All the windows were full of light, and he could hear women's voices.
In imagination he saw the young men sitting round the sparely
furnished rooms, law-books and broken chairs--smoking and drinking,
playing the piano, singing, thinking they were enjoying themselves. A
few years and all would be over for them as all was over now for him.
But never would they drink of life as he had drunk, he was the type
of that of which they were but imperfect and inconclusive figments.
Was he not the Don Juan and the poet--a sort of Byron doubled with
Byron's hero? But he was without genius; had he genius, genius would
force him to live.

He considered how far in his pessimism he was