planation, but in reality he had a
horror of the scene of his defeat.

He came to lunch less often, and when they went driving or visiting the
galleries all the old-time, joyous companionship was gone. Not
infrequently, as they stood before some picture or sat at a concert, he
would whisper, "I have it; the act will end with _Enid_ doing
so-and-so," and not infrequently he hurried away from her to catch some
fugitive illumination which he feared to lose. He came to her
reception-room only once of a Saturday afternoon, just before the play
closed.

"How is the house?" he asked, with indifference.

"Bad."

"Very bad?"

"Oh yes."

"I must work the harder," he replied, and sank into a sombre silence. He
never came inside again.

Helen was deeply wounded by this visit, and was sorely tempted to take
him at his word and end the production, but she did not. She could not,
so deep had her interest in him become. Loyal to him she must remain,
loyal to his work.

As his bank account grew perilously small, Douglass fell into deeps of
black despair, wherein all imaginative power left him. At such times the
lack of depth and significance in his work appalled him. "It is
hopelessly poor and weak; it does not deserve to succeed. I've a mind to
tear it in rags." But he resisted this spirit, partly restrained by some
hidden power traceable to the influence of Helen and partly by his
desire to retrieve himself in the estimation of the world, but mainly
because of some hidden force in his own brain, and set to work each time
filing and polishing with renewed care of word and phrase.

Slowly the second drama took on form and quality, developing a web of
purpose not unlike that involved in a strain of solemn music, and at the
last the author's attention was directed towards eliminating minute
inharmonies or to the insertion of cacophony with design to make the
_andante_ passages the more enthrallingly sweet. As the play neared
completion his absorption began to show results. He lost vigor, and
Helen's eyes took anxious note of his weariness. "You are growing thin
and white, Mr. Author," she said to him, with solicitude in her voice.
"You don't look like the rugged Western Scotchman you were when I found
you. Am I to be your vampire?"

"On the contrary, I am to destroy you, to judge from the money you are
losing on my wretched play. I begin to fear I can never repay you, not
even with a great success. I have days when I doubt m