mighty
secret feeling that sprang so suddenly out of the dark, and caught you
by the throat? Why did it come now and not then, for this one and not
that other? What did man know of it, save that it made him spin and
hover--like a moth intoxicated by a light, or a bee by some dark sweet
flower; save that it made of him a distraught, humble, eager puppet of
its fancy? Had it not once already driven him even to the edge of death;
and must it now come on him again with its sweet madness, its drugging
scent? What was it? Why was it? Why these passionate obsessions that
could not decently be satisfied? Had civilization so outstripped man
that his nature was cramped into shoes too small--like the feet of a
Chinese woman? What was it? Why was it?

And faster than ever he walked away.

Pall Mall brought him back to that counterfeit presentment of the
real--reality. There, in St. James's Street, was Johnny Dromore's Club;
and, again moved by impulse, he pushed open its swing door. No need to
ask; for there was Dromore in the hall, on his way from dinner to the
card-room. The glossy tan of hard exercise and good living lay on his
cheeks as thick as clouted cream. His eyes had the peculiar shine of
superabundant vigour; a certain sub-festive air in face and voice and
movements suggested that he was going to make a night of it. And the
sardonic thought flashed through Lennan: Shall I tell him?

"Hallo, old chap! Awfully glad to see you! What you doin' with yourself?
Workin' hard? How's your wife? You been away? Been doin' anything
great?" And then the question that would have given him his chance, if
he had liked to be so cruel:

"Seen Nell?"

"Yes, she came round this afternoon."

"What d'you think of her? Comin' on nicely, isn't she?"

That old query, half furtive and half proud, as much as to say: 'I know
she's not in the stud-book, but, d--n it, I sired her!' And then the old
sudden gloom, which lasted but a second, and gave way again to chaff.

Lennan stayed very few minutes. Never had he felt farther from his old
school-chum.

No. Whatever happened, Johnny Dromore must be left out. It was
a position he had earned with his goggling eyes, and his astute
philosophy; from it he should not be disturbed.

He passed along the railings of the Green Park. On the cold air of this
last October night a thin haze hung, and the acrid fragrance from
little bonfires of fallen leaves. What was there about that scent of
burned-lea