my
nose to the grindstone? Why had I slaved incessantly all my life,
reading when I might have slept, examining patients when I might have
been strolling through meadows, hurrying through meals when I might have
eaten at leisure? What was the cause behind all the tremendous activity
and feverish haste of modern people? When Sarakoff had said that I would
not die, and that therein lay the charm of the new situation, it seemed
as if scales had momentarily fallen from my eyes. I beheld myself as
something ridiculous, comparable to a hare that persists in dashing
along a country lane in front of the headlight of a motor car, when a
turn one way or another would bring it to safety. A great uneasiness
filled me, and with it came a determination to ignore these new fields
of thought that loomed round me--a determination that I have seen in old
men when they are faced by the new and contradictory--and I began to
force my attention elsewhere. I was relieved when the door opened and
my servant entered. She handed me a telegram. It was from Miss Annot,
asking me to come to Cambridge at once, as her father was seriously ill.
I scribbled a reply, saying I would be down that afternoon.

After the servant had left the room, I remained gazing at the fire, but
my depression left me. In place of it I felt a quiet elation, and it was
not difficult for me to account for it.

"I was wrong in saying that I had scarcely known what pleasure is," I
observed at length, looking up at Sarakoff with a smile. "I must confess
to you that there is one factor in my life that gives me great
pleasure."

Sarakoff placed himself before me, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth,
and gazed at me with an answering smile in his dark face.

"A woman?"

I flushed. The Russian seemed amused.

"I thought as much," he remarked. "This year I noticed a change in you.
Your fits of abstraction suggested it. Well, may I congratulate you?
When are you to be married?"

"That is out of the question at present," I answered hurriedly. "In
fact, there is no definite arrangement--just a mutual understanding....
She is not free."

Sarakoff raised his shaggy eyebrows.

"Then she is already married?"

This cross-examination was intensely painful to me. Between Miss Annot
and myself there was, I hoped, a perfect understanding, and I quite
realized the girl's position. She was devoted to her father, who
required her constant attention and care, and until she was free the