s'--and he stared at me till his eyes almost mesmerised
me--'you must have been a monk once.'

"'I--a monk! Impossible! Even if I have lived on earth before, it could
never have been as a monk.'

"'How do you know that?'

"'Because I am utterly without superstitions, utterly free from any
lingering desire for an ascetic life. That existence of silence, of
ignorance, of perpetual prayer, can never have been mine.'

"'You cannot tell,' was all his answer.

II

"When I left Bond Street that afternoon I was full of disbelief.
However, I had paid my half-guinea and escaped from my own core of
misery for a quarter of an hour. That was something. I didn't regret my
visit to this man Vane, whom I regarded as an agreeable charlatan. For a
moment he had interested me. For a moment he had helped me to forget my
useless wretchedness. I ought to have been grateful to him. And, as
always, my soul regained its composure at last. One morning I awoke and
said to myself that I was happy. Why? I did not know. But I got up. I
was able to write once more. I was able to play. I felt that I had
friends who loved me and a career before me. I could again look people
in the face without fear. I could even feel a certain delightful conceit
of mind and body. Bernard, I was myself. So I thought, so I knew. And
yet, as days went by, I caught myself often thinking of this invisible,
tonsured, and cowled companion of mine, whom Vane had seen, whom I did
not see. Was he indeed with me? And, if so, had he thoughts, had he the
holy thoughts of a spirit that has renounced the world and all fleshly
things? Did he still keep that cloistered nature which is at home with
silence, which aspires, and prays, and lives for possible eternity,
instead of for certain time? Did he still hold desolate vigils? Did he
still scourge himself along the thorny paths of faith? And, if he did,
how must he regard me?

"I remember one night especially how this last thought was with me in a
dreary house, where I sinned, and where I dissected a heart.

"And I trembled as if an eye was upon me. And I went home.

"You will say that my imagination is keen, and that I gave way to it.
But wait and hear the end.

"This definite act of mine--this, my first conscious renunciation--did
not tend, as you might suppose, to the peace of my mind. On the
contrary, I found myself angry, perturbed, as I analysed the cause of my
warfare with self. I have naturally a supreme hatred of