now began to quarrel with his
work--not being able to get a certain effect, and having sometimes
altered and re-altered and re-re-altered a canvas until it bore little
resemblance to the original arrangement, he would grow terribly
discouraged; or believe that he had attained perfection at last, only to
change his mind the following morning.

"Now," he would say, "I think I have that thing right at last, thank
heaven!"

Angela would heave a sigh of relief, for she could feel instantly any
distress or inability that he felt, but her joy was of short duration.
In a few hours she would find him working at the same canvas changing
something. He grew thinner and paler at this time and his apprehensions
as to his future rapidly became morbid.

"By George! Angela," he said to her one day, "it would be a bad thing
for me if I were to become sick now. It's just the time that I don't
want to. I want to finish this exhibition up right and then go to
London. If I could do London and Chicago as I did New York I would be
just about made, but if I'm going to get sick--"

"Oh, you're not going to get sick, Eugene," replied Angela, "you just
think you are. You want to remember that you've worked very hard this
summer. And think how hard you worked last winter! You need a good rest,
that's what you need. Why don't you stop after you get this exhibition
ready and rest awhile? You have enough to live on for a little bit. M.
Charles will probably sell a few more of those pictures, or some of
those will sell and then you can wait. Don't try to go to London in the
spring. Go on a walking tour or go down South or just rest awhile,
anywhere,--that's what you need."

Eugene realized vaguely that it wasn't rest that he needed so much as
peace of mind. He was not tired. He was merely nervously excited and
apprehensive. He began to sleep badly, to have terrifying dreams, to
feel that his heart was failing him. At two o'clock in the morning, the
hour when for some reason human vitality appears to undergo a peculiar
disturbance, he would wake with a sense of sinking physically. His pulse
would appear to be very low, and he would feel his wrists nervously. Not
infrequently he would break out in a cold perspiration and would get up
and walk about to restore himself. Angela would rise and walk with him.
One day at his easel he was seized with a peculiar nervous
disturbance--a sudden glittering light before his eyes, a rumbling in
his ears, and a