ts they were absorbed in figures and explanations.
Finally the book was passed over to Matravers' keeping.

"I will see what I can do," he said quietly. "Some of these accounts
should certainly be recovered. I will come down and let you know how I
have got on."

[Illustration: "You mean this!" he cried thickly. "Say it
again--quick!"]

"If you would! If you don't mind! And, I wonder,--do you take a
morning paper? If so, will you bring it when you've done with it, or
an old one will do? I can't read anything but newspapers; and lately I
haven't dared to spend a penny,--because of Freddy, you know! It's so
cursed lonely!"

"I will come, and I will bring you something to read," Matravers
promised. "I must go now!"

John Drage held out his hand wistfully.

"Good-by," he said. "You're a good man! I wish I'd been like you. It's
an odd thing for me to say, but--God bless you, sir."

Matravers stood on the doorstep with his watch in his hand. It was
half-past three. There was just time to catch the four-thirty from
Waterloo! For a moment the little street faded away from before his
eyes! He saw himself at his journey's end! Berenice was there to meet
him! A breath of the country came to him on the breeze--a breath of
sweet-smelling flowers, and fresh moorland air, and the low murmur of
the blue sea. Yes, there was Berenice, with her dark hair blowing in
the wind, and that look of passionate peace in her pale, tired face!
Her arms were open, wide open! She had been weary so long! The
struggle had been so hard! and he, too, was weary----

He started! He was still on the doorstep! Freddy was drumming on the
pane, and behind, there was a man lying on the couch, with his face
buried in his hands. He waved his hand and descended the steps firmly.

"Back to my rooms, 147, Piccadilly," he told the cabman. "I shall not
be going away to-day."

CHAPTER XIV

A man wrote it, from his little room in the heart of London, whilst
night faded into morning. He wrote it with leaden heart and unwilling
mechanical effort--wrote it as a man might write his own doom. Every
fresh sentence, which stared up at him from the closely written sheets
seemed like another landmark in his sad descent from the pinnacles of
his late wonderful happiness down into the black waters of despair.
When he had finished, and the pen slipped from his stiff, nerveless
fingers, there were lines and marks in his face which had never been
there before, an