lur over, what he had summoned his friend to hear, was the record
of the months that had come after, a record which, for just the once,
he allowed himself to paint in its true colours, dull, dun gray, and
deep, deep black.

"That's all, Whittenden," he said abruptly at last. "I suppose I might
have gone about it a little bit more tersely; but, the fact is, I
haven't been letting myself rehearse it often. It's bad for the
audience."

"And almighty good for you," the curly-headed rector said tranquilly.
"Mind if I smoke, Reed?"

"Of course not. Sorry I can't join you. It's forbidden fruit, like most
other things, these days." He lay very still, for a while. Then he
looked up, with the ghost of his accustomed smile. "Well, what do you
make out of it all, Whittenden? You've heard and seen the worst of me.
Now what next? Is this losing my grip the final stage of the whole bad
matter?"

Whittenden flung up one lean hand to grasp the chairback above his
head. Then he smoked in silence for a time, his clear eyes fixed on
Opdyke's face. At last, he spoke.

"Reed, it sounds infernally like preaching, and you know I draw the
line at that, except from the pulpit. However, I don't know why, even
if one is a preacher, it's not as decent to quote Bible as to quote
Shakespeare; and there's one sentence that keeps coming into my head,
while I watch you, about losing your life and finding it again. You may
think you've lost your grip on yourself; but, from your own showing,
you've gained a lot of grip on your friends, and I'm not sure that may
not count fully as much, in the long run. As for the bore of it, I
can't much wonder. I'd go mad, myself, laid out here like a poker, and
left, half the day, to ponder on the things I hadn't had time to finish
doing. But, for the rest of it--Reed, I knew you in what you are
pleased to call your palmy days. They were palmy, too; it must have
hurt like thunder to be plucked out of them. And yet," the clear eyes
swept from the topmost wave of brown hair down across the intent face,
so curiously alive, down across the inert body, so curiously dead; "and
yet, I'll be hanged if I don't believe you are more of a man, more of
an active force, than you were then."

"Impossible." Reed spoke briefly.

"Why?" The answer was as brief.

"I don't see a dozen different people in a month, Whittenden. You've no
idea how few there are who--"

"Who take the trouble to come up your stairs? Exactly. Of cours