I flourished was gone out of me, I
was a worn old man--that the Fire of Life which usually burned in my
body, making me look bright and young, was now none of it my own; a few
hot ashes only were mine, which Death sat cowering by! I could not but
sit and gaze at the reflection of the seared ghastliness of that face,
which was mine and yet not mine, and feel well-nigh sick unto death.
After a while, however, I plucked up heart. I considered that it was
impossible this change had come all at once; I must have looked like
that--or almost like that--once or twice or oftener before, and yet life
and reinvigoration had gone on as they had been wont. I wrapped myself
well up, and went out. I found a fit subject. I replenished my life as
theretofore; my youthful, fresh appearance returned, and my confidence
with it. I refused to look again upon my own, my worn face, from that
time until tonight.

"But alarm again seized me about a year ago, when I chanced by
calculation to note that my periods of abounding life were gradually
getting shorter,--that I needed reinvigoration at more frequent
intervals;--not that I did not take as much from my subjects as
formerly--on the contrary, I seemed to take more--but that I lost more
rapidly what I took, as if my body were becoming little better than a
fine sieve. The last stage of all was this that you are familiar with,
when my subjects began to be so utterly exhausted as to attract public
notice. Yet that is not what has given me pause, and made me resolve to
bring the whole weary, selfish business to an end. Could I not have gone
elsewhere--anywhere, the wide world over--and lived my life? But I was
kept, I was tethered here, to this London by a feeling I had never known
before. Call it by the common fool's name of Love; call it what you
will. I was fascinated by your sister Nora, even as others had been
fascinated by me, even as I had been in my youth by the bountiful,
gracious beauty of Nature."

"I have wanted to ask you," said Lefevre, "for an explanation of your
conduct towards Nora. Why did you--with your awful life--life which, as
you say, was not your own, and your extraordinary secret--why did you
remain near her, and entangle her with your fascinations? What did you
desire?--what did you hope for?"

"I scarcely know for what I hoped. But let me speak of her; for she has
traversed and completely eclipsed my former vision of Nature. I have
told you what my point of view was,-