act value she had placed
upon the art of expression,--a value that was in inverse ratio to her
limitations. Literature to her was, above all else, the art of words.
Stories were to be picked up anywhere: had she not found a number ready
to her hand? The creative faculty might, in its unique development, be
something supremer still, although crippled without the perfected medium
of this writer, who seemed above all writers to be the master and not
the servant of words. She re-read her own efforts. They represented the
hard thought and work of six years; not a great span, perhaps, but long
enough to determine the promise of a faculty. The stories were wooden.
Her work would always be wooden. There was not a phrase to delight the
cultivated reader, not a line that any moderately clever person, given
the same material, might not have written. After as many more years of
labour she might become a praiseworthy writer of the third rank. She put
her manuscripts in the fire.

After that, life turned grey indeed. Her imagination might have gone
into the flames with the stories, for her illusions about Trennahan fell
to ashes coincidently. She no longer believed that he would return, that
he would even write demanding her friendship. She could hardly recall
his face; the sound of his voice was gone from her. Indubitably he had
forgotten her long since. Why not? She had ascended above the rosy
stratum of youth, where delusions were possible.

Then began a long struggle against despair and its terrible
consequences. It was a summer of raging trades which seemed to lift the
sand dunes from their foundations and hurl them through the choking
city. She could take little exercise. The Library was her only resource,
but one can read only so many hours a day. If she could but travel, as
Helena did, when anything went wrong! Or if her uncle had only left her
an income that she could expend in charity! Her sympathy for the poor
had never ebbed, and she would have gladly spent her life in their
service, although she doubted if they were more miserable than herself.
It was true that she had enough to eat, a roof to her head, and clothes
to wear,--extremely plain clothes; but that was all. A nun or a prisoner
had as much.

There were times when she was threatened with a consuming hatred of
life, and then she fled out into the dust and battled with the storms
within and without; for her ideals were all that were left her. She knew
the ugly p