ars in a circle which had led him back at last to his
own soul. Beyond this, he saw there was little further to be lost and
nothing to be learned. "Give me more light, my God!" he had prayed in
agony of spirit; and the answer had come in a mental illumination which
had made the crooked places plain and the obscure meanings clear. At
last he was happy, for at last he had learned that the man who loses all
else and has God possesses everything.

His loneliness--surely there was never a man more alone since the
beginning of time--had failed suddenly to disquiet him; and as he looked
from his remote vision upon the people about him, there flowed through
his mind that ultimate essence of knowledge which enables a man to
recognise himself when he encounters the stranger in the street.

Several weeks later he heard from Gerty Bridewell of Laura's engagement
to Arnold Kemper. He had dropped in to see Perry one afternoon upon an
insignificant piece of business, and Gerty in her husband's absence, had
insisted upon receiving his call.

"I'll reward you with a bit of news," she said, with a nervous and
troubled gesture. "Laura will be married in the autumn."

"Married?" He looked at her a little blankly, for after having armoured
himself to meet an expected blow, he was almost surprised to find that
he was not insensible to the shock. "Married! and to whom?"

"To Arnold, of course. Didn't you suspect that it would happen?"

He shook his head. "Of all men he's the last I'd ever have thought of."
With the words a vision of Kemper rose before him, robust, virile,
sensual, with his dominant egoism and his pleasant affectations, half
hero and half libertine.

"Well, of all men he's probably the only one that could have done it,"
replied Gerty; "he's positively wild about her, there's some comfort to
be got from that--and Laura--"

"And Laura?" he repeated the name for she had broken off quickly after
having uttered it.

"Oh, Laura is very much in love, it seems. I don't believe she herself
knows exactly why--but then one never does."

"Well, let's wish them happiness with all our hearts," he said, and
added a little wistfully, "If it could only come by wishing."

"Ah, if it could!" was Gerty's plaintive echo; then her voice dropped
into a sigh of perplexity, and she leaned toward him in a flattering
confidential manner. "Do you know there are some men who are cads only
in their relations to women," she observed; "leave out