Just as I could not shed tears, so was I incapable of apostrophizing God in my despair. To speak frankly, I did not believe in any God—then. I was to myself an all-sufficing mortal, scorning the time-worn superstitions of so-called religion. Of course I had been brought up in the Christian faith; but that creed had become worse than useless to me since I had intellectually realized the utter inefficiency of Christian ministers to deal with difficult life-problems. Spiritually I was adrift in chaos,—mentally I was hindered both in thought and achievement,—bodily I was reduced to want. My case was desperate,—I myself was desperate. It was a moment when if ever good and evil angels play a game of chance for a man's soul, they were surely throwing the dice on the last wager for mine. And yet, with it all, I felt I had done my best. I was driven into a corner by my fellow-men who grudged me space to live in, but I had fought against it. I had worked honestly and patiently;—all to no purpose. I knew of rogues who gained plenty of money; and of knaves who were amassing large fortunes. Their prosperity appeared to prove that honesty after all was not the best policy. What should I do then? How should I begin the Jesuitical business of committing evil that good, personal good, might come of it? So I thought, dully, if such stray half-stupefied fancies as I was capable of, deserved the name of thought.

The night was bitter cold. My hands were numbed, and I tried to warm them at the oil-lamp my landlady was good enough to still allow me the use of, in spite of delayed cashpayments. As I did so, I noticed three letters on the table, —one in a long blue envelope suggestive of either a summons or a returned manuscript,—one bearing the Melbourne postmark, and the third a thick square missive coroneted in red and gold at the back. I turned over all three indifferently, and selecting the one from Australia, balanced it in my hand a moment before opening it. I knew from whom it came, and idly wondered what news it brought me. Some months previously I had written a detailed account of my increasing debts and difficulties to an old college chum, who finding England too narrow for his ambition, had gone out to the wider new world on a speculative quest of gold mining. He was getting on well, so I understood, and had secured a fairly substantial position, and I had therefore ventured to ask him point-blank for the loan of fifty pounds. Here, no doubt, was his reply, and I hesitated before breaking the seal.

"Of course it will be a refusal," I said half-aloud,—" However kindly a friend may otherwise be, he soon turns crusty if asked to lend money. He will express many regrets, accuse trade and the general bad times, and hope I will soon 'tide over.' I know the sort of thing. Well,—after all, why should I expect him to be different to other men? I've no claim on him beyond the memory of a few sentimental armin-arm days at Oxford."

A sigh escaped me in spite of myself, and a mist blurred my sight for the moment. Again I saw the grey towers of peaceful Magdalen, and the fair green trees shading the walks in and around the dear old University town where we,—I and the man whose letter I now held in my hand, strolled about together as happy youths, fancying that we were young geniuses born to regenerate the world. We were both fond of classics, —we were brimful of Homer and the thoughts and maxims of all the immortal Greeks and Latins,—and I verily believe in those imaginative days we thought we had in us such stuff as heroes are made of. But our entrance into the social arena soon robbed us of our sublime conceit,—we were common working units, no more,—the grind and prose of daily life put Homer into the background, and we soon discovered that society was more interested in the latest unsavoury scandal than in the tragedies of Sophocles or the wisdom of Plato. Well! it was no doubt extremely foolish of us to dream that we might help to regenerate a world in which both Plato and Christ appear to have failed,—yet the most hardened cynic will scarcely deny that it is pleasant to look back to the days of his youth if he can think that at least then, if only once in his life, he had noble impulses.

The lamp burned badly, and I had to re-trim it before I could settle down to read my friend's letter. Next door someone was playing a violin, and playing it well. Tenderly and yet with a certain amount of brio the notes came dancing from the bow, and I listened, vaguely pleased. Being faint with hunger I was somewhat in a listless state bordering on stupor, —and the penetrating sweetness of the music appealing to the sensuous and aesthetic part of me, drowned for the moment mere animal craving.

"There you go!" I murmured, apostrophizing the unseen musician,—"practising away on that friendly fiddle of yours, —no doubt for a mere pittance which barely keeps you alive. Possibly you are some poor wretch in a cheap orchestra,— or you might even be a street-player and be able to live in this neighbourhood of the ilite starving,—you can have no hope whatever of being the 'fashion' and making your bow before Royalty,—or if you have that hope it is wildly misplaced. Play on, my friend, play on !—the sounds you make are very agreeable and seem to imply that you are happy. I wonder if you are?—or if, like me, you are going rapidly to the devil!"

The music grew softer and more plaintive and was now accompanied by the rattle of hailstones against the windowpanes.