stic story has no charm, nor
excitement, nor psychical thrill. This'll show them!"

So he hurried to deliver it to Brown. Then he posed industriously to
himself, and tried hard to do some more glooming, but it was difficult
work. Someway he felt his cause not hopeless. This masterpiece would go
far to convince her that he was right after all.

Three days later he received a note from Brown asking him to call. He
did so. The editor handed him back his story, more in sorrow than in
anger, and spoke reprovingly about deserting one's principles. Brown was
conscientious. He believed that the past counted nothing in face of the
present. Severne pressed for an explanation. Then said Brown:

"Severne, I have used much of your stuff, and I have liked it. The
sentences have been crisp. The adjectives have been served hot. You have
eschewed poetic connotation. And, above all, you have shown men and life
as they are. I am sorry to see that you have departed from that noble
ideal."

"But," cried Severne, in expostulation, "do not these qualities appear
in my story?"

"At first they do," responded Brown, "but later--ah!" He sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"The ride down the canon," he explained. "The sentences are crisp and
the adjectives hot. But, alas! there is much poetic connotation, and, so
far from representing real life, it seems to me only the perperoid
lucubrations of a disordered imagination."

"Why, that part is the most realistic in the whole thing!" cried the
unhappy author, in distress.

"No," replied the editor, firmly, "it is not. It is not realism at all.
Even if there were nothing objectionable about the incident, the man's
feelings are frightfully overdrawn. No man ever was such an everlasting
coward as you make out your hero! I should be glad to see something else
of yours--but that, no!"

Somewhat damped, Severne took his manuscript home with him. There he
re-read it. All his old enthusiasm returned. It was exactly true.
Realism could have had no more accurate exposition of its principles. He
cursed Brown, and inclosed stamps to the _Decade_. After a time he
received a check and a flattering letter. Realism stood vindicated!

In due course the story appeared. During the interim Severne had found
that his glooming was becoming altogether too realistic for his peace of
mind. As time went on and he saw nothing of Lucy Melville, he began to
realise that perhaps, after all, he was making a mistake somewhere