ry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so
delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much
himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt
young listener.

"How old are you?" he said, presently.

"Twenty-two next month."

"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've
realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher,
white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you
stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being
twenty-two!

"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways,
I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider
the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and
enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say
I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week,
next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be
grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy
occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little
ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but
I'll think it over between now and then."

Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of
had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of
which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a
very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner.

One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had
suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over
him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving
his bedside.

"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer,
faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and
struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there,
and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that
persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy;
and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see;
so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's
room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head.

"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--"

There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He
listened for the