ot seem possible that a felon could have told
a more wanton lie than he had been told but little over an hour before;
and yet the teller of that lie was his nearest friend. And still he did
not understand; surely there was some mistake. He would have spoken, but
Weldon crossed the room to where he stood, and with set teeth and
contracted muscles fronted him a second's space, and into his eyes he
looked a defiance that was the more hideous in that it was mute. Then,
with a gesture that almost tore the portiere from its rings, he passed
out into the hall and let the curtain fall behind him.

As he passed on Tristrem turned with the obedience of a subject under
the influence of a mesmerist; and when the curtain fell again he started
as subjects do when they awake from their trance.

The fairest, truest, and best may be stricken in the flush of health;
yet after the grave has opened and closed again does not memory still
subsist, and to the mourner may not the old dreams return? However acute
the grief may be, is it not often better to know that affection is safe
in the keeping of the dead than to feel it at the mercy of the living?
We may prate as we will, but there are many things less endurable than
the funeral of the best-beloved. Death is by no means the worst that can
come. Whoso discovers that affection reposed has been given to an
illusory representation; to one not as he is, but as fancy pictured him;
to a trickster that has cheated the heart--in fact, to a phantom that
has no real existence outside of the imagination, must experience a
sinking more sickening than any corpse can convey. At the moment, the
crack of doom that is to herald an eternal silence cannot more appal.

Tristrem still stood gazing at the portiere through which Weldon had
disappeared. He heard the front door close, and the sound of feet on the
pavement. And presently he was back at St. Paul's, hurrying from the
Upper School to intercede with the master. It was bitterly cold that
morning, but in the afternoon the weather had moderated, and they had
both gone to skate. And then the day he first came. He remembered his
good looks, his patronizing, precocious ways; everything, even to the
shirt he wore--blue, striped with white--and the watch with the crest
and the motto _Well done, Weldon_. No, it was ill done, Weldon, and the
lie was ignoble. And why had he told it? Their friendship, seemingly,
had been so stanch, so unmarred by disagreement, th