ly farce so far as I am concerned. I never do anything.
There's never anything to do."

"Oh, rats!" said Crowther, and smiled. "There are not many fellows who do
half as much. If to-day is a fair sample of your life, I'm damned if it's
an easy one."

"I'm used to it," said Piers quickly. "You know, I'm awfully fond of my
grandfather--always have been. We suit each other marvellously well--in
some ways." He paused a moment, then, with an effort, "I never told him
either, Crowther. I never told a soul."

"No," Crowther said. "I don't see any reason that you should. But the
woman you marry--she is different. If you take her into your inner life
at all, she is bound to come upon it sooner or later. You must see it,
lad. You know it in your heart."

"And you think she will marry me when she knows I'm a--murderer?" Piers
uttered the word through clenched teeth. He had the haggard look of a man
who has endured long suffering.

There was deep compassion in Crowther's eyes as he watched him. "I don't
think--being a woman--she will put it in that way," he said, "not, that
is, if she loves you."

"How else could she put it?" demanded Piers harshly. "Is there any other
way of putting it? I killed the man intentionally. I told you so at the
time. The fellow who taught me the trick warned me that it would almost
certainly be fatal to a heavy man taken unawares. Why, he himself is now
doing five years' penal servitude for the very same thing. Oh, I'm not a
humbug, Crowther. I bolted from the consequences. You made me bolt. But
I've often wished to heaven since that I'd stayed and faced it out. It
would have been easier in the end, God knows."

"My dear fellow," Crowther said, "you will never convince me of that as
long as you live. There was nothing to gain by your staying and all to
lose. Consequences there were bound to be--and always are. But there was
no good purpose to be served by wrecking your life. You were only a boy,
and the luck was against you. I couldn't have stood by and seen you
dragged under."

Piers groaned. "I sometimes wish I was dead!" he said.

"My dear chap, what's the good of that?" Crowther slipped his hand from
his shoulder to his arm, and drew him quietly forward. "You've suffered
infernally, but it's made a man of you. Don't forget that! It's the
Sculptor and the Clay, lad. He knows how best to fashion a good thing. It
isn't for the clay to cry out."

"Is that your point of view?" Piers spoke wit