ge part of his nature was patient and simple, docile as an
animal's. There was in him so much that was rudimentary, that in accepting
this burden of physical toil he was acting not in contradiction to, but in
full and perfect harmony with, his true nature.

But at the end of a week his health began to give way, and, like a man
after a violent debauch, he thought of returning to a more normal
existence. He had left the manuscript of his unfortunate play in the North.
Had they destroyed it? The involuntary fear of the writer for his child
made him smile. What did it matter? Clearly the first thing to do would be
to write to the editor of _The Cosmopolitan_, and ask if he could find him
some employment, something certain; writing occasional articles for
newspapers, that he couldn't do.

Hubert had saved twelve shillings. He would therefore be able to pay his
landlady: he smiled--one of his landladies! The earlier debt was now
hopelessly out of his reach, and seemed to represent a social plane from
which he had for ever fallen. If he had succeeded in getting that play
right, what a difference it would have made! He would have been able to do
a number of things he had never done, things which he had always desired to
do. He had desired above all to travel--to see France and Italy; to linger,
to muse in the shadows of the world's past; and after this he had desired
marriage, an English wife, an English home, beautiful children, leisure,
the society of friends. A successful play would have given him all these
things, and now his dream must remain for ever unrealised by him. He had
sunk out of sight and hearing of such life.

Rose was another; she might sink as he had sunk; she might never find the
opportunity of realising her desire. How well she would have played that
part! He knew what was in her. And now! What did his failure to write that
play condemn him to? Heaven only knows, he did not wish to think. Strange,
was it not strange?... A man of genius--many believed him a genius--and yet
he was incapable of earning his daily bread otherwise than by doing the
work of a navvy. Even that he could not do well, society had softened his
muscles and effeminised his constitution. Indeed, he did not know what life
fate had willed him for. He seemed to be out of place everywhere. His best
chance was to try to obtain a clerkship. The editor of _The Cosmopolitan_
might be able to do that for him; if he could not, far better it would be