riendship with Mrs. Chepstow difficult,
perhaps impossible. If love had led him to such an inclination, he
would, being no prude, have understood it as a perfectly natural and
perfectly healthy thing. But he did not love Mrs. Chepstow. He would
never love, really love, again. For years he had said that to himself,
and had believed it. He said it again now. And even if he could renew
that strange power, to love, he could not love a woman who was not pure.
He felt certain of that. He thought of the dead girl and of Mrs.
Chepstow. But to-night he could not recall the dead girl's figure,
face, look, exactly. Mrs. Chepstow's he could, of course, recall. He
had seen her that very day. And the girl he had loved had been dead for
many years. She lived in his memory now rather as a symbol of purity and
beauty than as a human being.

Mrs. Chepstow, of course, would never find a man sincerely to love her
now.

And yet why not! Suddenly Nigel checked himself, as he generally did
when he found himself swiftly subscribing to the general opinion of the
great mass of men. Why not? The shoulder to the wheel; it was nearly
always the shoulder of love--love of an idea, love of a woman, love of
humanity, love of work, love of God. All the men he knew, or very nearly
all, would laugh at the idea of Mrs. Chepstow being sincerely loved. But
the fact that they would laugh could have no effect on a manly heart or
a manly spirit.

He felt almost angry with her for the loneliness and the immobility
which pained his chivalry and struck at his sense of pity. If he could
think of her as going away, too, as wandering, in Switzerland, in Italy,
in some lovely place, he would feel all right. But always he saw her
seated in that room, alone, deserted, playing the piano, reading, with
no prospect of company, of change. Mrs. Chepstow had acted her part
well. She had stamped a lonely image upon the retina of Nigel's
imagination.

He was still walking about his room in bare feet. But his cigar had gone
out, though it was still between his lips. The hour was very late. He
heard a distant clock strike two. And just after he had listened to its
chime, followed by other chimes in near and distant places of the city,
the night idea of a strong and young man came to him.

If he could not be friends with Mrs. Chepstow, could he be--the other
thing to her!

He put up his hand to his lips, took away the cigar, and flung it out of
the window violently. And th