arger proportion of
the work he did came back again. He seemed to be in a curious frame of
mind--as though he took it for granted that that five hundred pounds was
already on its way to him.

"If I get that five hundred pounds," he would say, "I will do this, or
that."

His wife grew sick at heart.

"Geoffrey, I wish you wouldn't think of it so much. You make me think
about it, too. And then, if you don't get it, you know what a bitter
disappointment it will be."

"I suppose you take it for granted that I shan't get it?"

"I don't take anything for granted. I never do. I wish you wouldn't
either."

"There's one thing, I don't believe that these competitions are ever
conducted fairly. I don't see how they can be. I don't see how any man,
or any set of men, can wade through a cartload of MSS. in such a manner
as to be able to judge, with critical nicety, which is the best one in
the truckful. But I'm sure of this, I don't believe that any man sent in
a better story than 'The Beggar'--a more original one, I mean. I know
the sort of people who enter for these competitions-a lot of wretched
amateurs."

She said nothing in reply. What could she say? She knew that it was not
only conceit which prompted him to talk like that. She understood quite
well the almost anguished longing which filled his heart. Her own heart
throbbed pulse for pulse with his.

Returned MSS. seemed to annoy him more than usual. He was case-hardened,
as a rule. When they reappeared, he simply packed them up again, and
sent them off upon another journey. Especially was he irritated by the
return of a MS. which he had sent to _The Monthly Magazine_.

"I knew that would come back. I see that Philip Ayre has something in
this month's number. I don't know who he is. So far as I know, he is the
very last discovery. But I believe that that man is destined to be my
evil star."

His wife went white to the lips.

"Geoffrey! I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It doesn't sound like you
at all."

"I suppose they're quite right in preferring his work to mine, only--"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Philippa, I sometimes wish that you were a
writer. Then you would understand me better. You would understand what I
feel when I see the dream of my life growing dimmer and dimmer, and more
dream-like, every day."

Philippa was still.

The day approached on which the conductors of the _North British Herald_
had stated that they would announce the winners in