coming. Anything that would be the least good for anybody--I
mean."

Renouard had recovered sufficiently to murmur coldly his regret of
this waste of time. For that was what, he supposed, the professor
had in his mind.

"Time," mused Professor Moorsom. "I don't know that time can be
wasted. But I will tell you, my dear friend, what this is: it is
an awful waste of life. I mean for all of us. Even for my sister,
who has got a headache and is gone to lie down."

He shook gently Renouard's arm. "Yes, for all of us! One may
meditate on life endlessly, one may even have a poor opinion of it-
-but the fact remains that we have only one life to live. And it
is short. Think of that, my young friend."

He released Renouard's arm and stepped out of the shade opening his
parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his mind
than mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable
audiences. What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? To
Renouard, scared by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing
could be more fatal than to have his deception unveiled otherwise
than by personal confession), this talk sounded like encouragement
or a warning from that man who seemed to him to be very brazen and
very subtle. It was like being bullied by the dead and cajoled by
the living into a throw of dice for a supreme stake.

Renouard went away to some distance from the house and threw
himself down in the shade of a tree. He lay there perfectly still