appening in the country; and he asked no
questions. He was sick of the world, and sick of life. The great
question was, what should he do? Should he commit suicide, and thus put
an end to an existence which to him had no meaning or purpose, or should
he go somewhere and begin anew? His nature, in spite of his beliefs,
rebelled against the former. He could not bring himself, little as he
cared for life, to destroy it by his own hand. As for the latter
alternative, the old question reiterated itself, where should he go?
what should he do?

He loathed the thought of going back to London, to live the life of a
useless parasite amidst clubs and club loungers. The political door was
closed against him, and even if it were not, he felt he could not enter
it now. He had an income sufficient for all his needs, and as a
consequence had no need to work for his living. It would have been
better for him if he had. Humanly speaking, there are few better moral
tonics than work.

Looming larger than all other questions was this: Had he for ever lost
Olive Castlemaine? Had he won her only to lose her? But for the
determination which in spite of his despair lay at the back of his mind,
I imagine he would have put an end to an existence which at times became
almost unbearable.

He was pondering over all these things for the hundredth time one day as
he was walking across the moors alone. The clouds hung heavily in the
sky, while occasionally gusts of cold wind, accompanied by driving rain,
reminded him that winter had not yet come to an end. As he walked and
thought, a storm had gathered, and he saw that the sky threatened a
downpour of rain.

"What do I care?" he laughed bitterly. "I feel like old King Lear.
Nothing is wanting now but Tom Fool to make the picture complete. 'Blow,
blow, thou winter wind!'"

The rain fell in torrents, and in spite of his wild mood, he made his
way to a lonely farmhouse in order to find shelter. By the time he
reached it, his clothes were soaked with rain.

He stood in a cart-shed, and watched the flood as it fell. The few trees
that grew around the farmstead looked drear and forbidding; away in the
distance the hills seemed to smoke.

"And this is life," he laughed. "We are born, we suffer, we make fools
of ourselves, and we die."

And yet he knew it was not life as it might be. If he could have had
Olive Castlemaine by his side, he could have been a happy man. But she
had driven him from her pr