ound its way across the open spaces.

"As though Anything cared?" he went on musing. "What does it matter
whether one is good or bad, idle or industrious? Some work and some
play, some are rich and some are poor. Well, what's the odds? We are
only like gnats, born when the sun rises, and die when it goes down. The
worst of it is that this beastly little race leaves others of the same
species behind. And so the farce will go on, until the earth grows cold
and the race dies. Well, and what then? Whether one dies young or old,
what does it affect? Who cares? Nothing cares."

He looked up at the great dome of blue, and saw here and there a star.

"As though, if there is Anything at the back of all things, the Force
which caused those worlds could care for a paltry little earthworm like
I am!"

He laughed aloud, and then shuddered at the sound of his own voice. The
city seemed like some huge phantom which had no real existence.

He turned into one of the many ways which lead from Fleet Street to the
river. If possible, it seemed more silent than ever here. The lights
were less brilliant, life seemed to be extinct.

"Oh, what a coward, a poor whining coward I am," he said. "I think, and
brood, and drink, and dream, and curse; but I do nothing. I, who used to
boast of my will-power and my determination. I live like a rat in a
hole; I dare not come out and show myself, and I dare not put an end to
the dirty business called life, because I have a sort of haunting fear
that I should not make an end of myself even although this carcase of
mine should rot."

Presently he reached the Embankment, and he walked to the wall which
bounded the river and looked over. The tide was going out. The dark,
muddy river, carrying much of the refuse of London, rolled on towards
the sea. Yet the waters gleamed bright, both in the light of the moon as
well as in those of the lamps which stood by its banks, but the water
was foul all the same, foul with the offal of a foul city. He turned
away from it with a shudder.

"Why haven't I the pluck to take the plunge, instead of being the
whining, drivelling idiot I am?" he cried. "Nothing cares, and nothing
would happen--except nothingness."

He walked along the Embankment. "And yet I told her that I could be a
man. After all, was she not right? What if she were unjust? Was such a
creature as I am fit to be the husband of a pure woman? See the thing I
have become in less than a month. Might I no