"

"I think not," said he, "but I will come. Yes, of course, I am bound to
come. But let me have a few minutes here alone. Go you down along the
path a little way slowly. I will follow you in a quarter of an hour. And
remember we are to be here together once more!"

Once more! Yes, and then what must be done?

How was this strange case to be dealt with so as to save all the actors,
as far as possible, from needless suffering? That Keene's mind was
disordered at least three of us suspected already. But to me alone
was the nature and seat of the disorder known. How make the others
understand it? They might easily conceive it to be something different
from the fact, some actual lesion of the brain, an incurable insanity.
But this it was not. As yet, at least, he was no patient for a
mad-house: it would be unjust, probably it would be impossible to have
him committed. But on the other hand they might take it too lightly, as
the result of overwork, or perhaps of the use of some narcotic. To me
it was certain that the trouble went far deeper than this. It lay in the
man's moral nature, in the error of his central will. It was the working
out, in abnormal form, but with essential truth, of his chosen and
cherished ideal of life. Spy Rock was something more than the seat of
his delusion, it was the expression of his temperament. The
solitary trail that led thither was the symbol of his search for
happiness--alone, forgetful of life's lowlier ties, looking down upon
the world in the cold abstraction of scornful knowledge. How was such
a man to be brought back to the real life whose first condition is the
acceptance of a limited outlook, the willingness to live by trust as
much as by sight, the power of finding joy and peace in the things that
we feel are the best, even though we cannot prove them nor explain them?
How could he ever bring anything but discord and sorrow to those who
were bound to him?

This was what perplexed and oppressed me. I needed all the time until
the next Saturday to think the question through, to decide what should
be done. But the matter was taken out of my hands. After our latest
expedition Keene's dark mood returned upon him with sombre intensity.
Dull, restless, indifferent, half-contemptuous, he seemed to withdraw
into himself, observing those around him with half-veiled glances, as if
he had nothing better to do and yet found it a tiresome pastime. He was
like a man waiting wearily at a ra