eedments he would carry with him
into the wilderness, such few evidences of civilisation as the poorest
cannot well dispense with. Anger, revolt, a sense of outraged love--all
manner of confused passions had sustained him throughout this day of
toil; now he had leisure to know how faint he was. He threw himself upon
his chair-bedstead, and lay for more than an hour in torpor of body and
mind.

But before he could sleep he must eat. Though it was cold, he could
not exert himself to light a fire; there was some food still in the
cupboard, and he consumed it in the fashion of a tired labourer, with
the plate on his lap, using his fingers and a knife. What had he to do
with delicacies?

He felt utterly alone in the world. Unless it were Biffen, what mortal
would give him kindly welcome under any roof? These stripped rooms
were symbolical of his life; losing money, he had lost everything. 'Be
thankful that you exist, that these morsels of food are still granted
you. Man has a right to nothing in this world that he cannot pay for.
Did you imagine that love was an exception? Foolish idealist! Love is
one of the first things to be frightened away by poverty. Go and live
upon your twelve-and-sixpence a week, and on your memories of the past.'

In this room he had sat with Amy on their return from the wedding
holiday. 'Shall you always love me as you do now?'--'For ever! for
ever!'--'Even if I disappointed you? If I failed?'--'How could that
affect my love?' The voices seemed to be lingering still, in a sad,
faint echo, so short a time it was since those words were uttered.

His own fault. A man has no business to fail; least of all can he expect
others to have time to look back upon him or pity him if he sink under
the stress of conflict. Those behind will trample over his body; they
can't help it; they themselves are borne onwards by resistless pressure.

He slept for a few hours, then lay watching the light of dawn as it
revealed his desolation.

The morning's post brought him a large heavy envelope, the aspect of
which for a moment puzzled him. But he recognised the handwriting, and
understood. The editor of The Wayside, in a pleasantly-written note,
begged to return the paper on Pliny's Letters which had recently
been submitted to him; he was sorry it did not strike him as quite so
interesting as the other contributions from Reardon's pen.

This was a trifle. For the first time he received a rejected piece of
writing