and since
then my letters to him had been short notes, out of which I studiously
kept my own feelings. There was no one now to whom I could either speak
or write a word of personal matters.

An anchorite in a cave of the desert could not have been more shut off
from that dear communication with his fellows that a man hardly values
till he loses it.

When I had lighted the lamp I sat staring at the loose sheets of the
manuscript lying on the side table, noting painfully how far it was
from completion, and it was only when I lifted it to the middle table
for work that I glanced at the letter again.

As my eyes fell on the superscription the blood leapt into my face--it
was Howard's. There was a strong disinclination in me to take up the
letter, to read it, to let my thoughts flow in his direction at all.
Resolutely I had tried to banish the memory of him from my mind, to
utterly throw out his image from my recollection. The thought of him
was disagreeable, and therefore never welcomed.

The idea of one person cherishing, as the phrase is, hatred, envy, or
anger against another, always seems to me incomprehensible. All these
are unpleasant sensations, and I sweep them out of my mind as quickly
as I possibly can, not from any exalted motives, but simply as useless,
cumbering lumber, for which I decline to use my brain at a storehouse.
Howard had injured me enough.

Was I to waste my time and my energies in hating him? And yet the time
had not come when I could think of him with calm indifference.
Therefore, to scout the idea of him whenever it presented itself, to
refuse to dwell upon him and what he had inflicted on me, was the only
way to escape additional pain and discomfort for myself. And now, at
sight of his handwriting, the beast, the monster of declining hate rose
in me again, and I remembered him.

It came back upon me that evening, his image, and I knew that I hated
him still. I took up the letter with a feeling of revolt and disgust,
as if it had been a filthy object, broke it open, and read:--

"DEAR VICTOR,--I expect you will say to yourself it is the greatest
cheek my writing to you, and I know it is, but I am reduced to that
state of desperation when a man ceases to feel degradation."

"I am writing to ask you for help--you will wonder how I can. So do I.
I wonder at myself. But I know you are the best of fellows, and I feel
you will help me now in spite of all that has happened. Victor send me
what