the night falling toward the arms of dawn.

Claude walked swiftly on, turned the corner, and came into the
thoroughfare which skirts Kensington Gardens and the Park. Some fifty
yards away there was a letter box. He hurried toward it, driven on by
defiance of that within him which would fain have held him back, by the
blind instinct to trample which sometimes takes hold of a strong and
emotional nature in a moment of unusual excitement.

"The great refuser! No, I'll not be that any longer."

As he drew near to the letter box he felt that till now he had been a
composer. Henceforth he would be a man. He had lived for an art.
Henceforth he would live for life, and would make life feel his art.

He dropped his letter into the box.

In falling out of his sight it made a faint, uneasy noise.

Claude stood there like one listening.

The grayness seemed to grow slightly more livid over the tree-tops and
behind the branches. The letter did not speak again. So he thought of
that tiny noise, as the speech of the dropping letter. It must have slid
down against the side of the box. Now it was lying still. There was
nothing more for him to do but to go home. Yet he waited before the
letter box, with his eyes fixed upon the small white plaque on which was
printed the time of the next delivery--eight-forty A.M.

Was it the sound, or was it the movement preceding the sound, which had
worked a cold change in his heart? He felt almost stunned by what he had
done, like a man who strikes and sees the result of his blow, who has
not measured its force, and sees his victim measure it. Eight-forty
A.M.

A step sounded. He looked, and saw in the distance the large policeman
slowly advancing.

When he was again in his house he closed the front door softly, and went
once more to the studio. He looked round it, examining the familiar
objects: the piano, his work table, the books, the deep, well-worn,
homely chairs, the rugs which Mrs. Mansfield had liked. On the floor, by
his table, lay the fragments of manuscript music. How had he come to
tear it, his last composition?

He went over to the window, opened a square of the glass, sat down on
the window-seat, and looked out to the tiny garden. A faint smell, as of
dewy earth, rose from it, fresh, delicate, and--somehow--pathetic. As
Claude leaned on the window-sill this frail scent, which seemed part of
the dying night, connected itself in his mind with his past life. He
drew it in thro