orgive. Forgiveness had ever flowed from him in sheer
weakness. It had been the habit of his life to love and admire his
brother--he loved and admired him still. He did not think that he
himself would have been quite so hard on a poor devil in his place; but
his brother was a strong man and he a weak one--no doubt his brother
was right.

It was certain he was not a cruel man--did he not owe him the bread he
ate? Had he not shed tears over the death of a dog a day or two before?
The dog had been in incurable pain, and a pill which had been procured
from the chemist had caused that pain instantly to cease. The master
had given the order of execution, and had turned away from the gaze of
the suffering brute with the waters of sensibility in his eyes.

And how quietly the dog had died! One instant in convulsions of pain,
and the next still--quite still! The young man who had carried with him
from childhood a great dread of death had been much impressed. After
all, could it be so terrible?

Only one little pill had sufficed to produce that great change--would
suffice to kill two or three dogs, the chemist had said. But the young
man had brought away with him a second dose for fear of accident. As he
looked with unseeing eyes at the broken boot, his finger and thumb held
the second little pill securely in the corner of his waistcoat pocket.

He was afraid of death; but, as a child believes, he believed in God.
Through the recklessness, the wildness, the "joyous folastries" of
youth there had clung to him still the feeling that God was above him;
there beyond the stars; he had felt His smile sometimes, or grown cold
beneath His frown. He had not read, nor thought; nor had he listened to
clever talk on the absurdities of a worn-out faith, the uselessness of
an obsolete creed. His business had been with enjoying himself
simply--with none of those things. Of every other foolishness on earth
his lips had babbled, but not blasphemies. He had not trodden the
downward path with lingering steps, he had gone precipitately to his
ruin; but at least his eyes had been on the stars.

It was for this reason, perhaps, that, although he sat there, a
miserable failure, driven by the heartless might of the world to the
last extremity, there was yet a light upon his brow, and about his
weakly-parted lips a sweetness sometimes absent from brows and lips of
more admirable men.

If he went, beneath scented lime-tree, past gay-flowered border,