Martin Eden, with blood still crawling from contact with his brother-in-
law, felt his way along the unlighted back hall and entered his room, a
tiny cubbyhole with space for a bed, a wash-stand, and one chair. Mr.
Higginbotham was too thrifty to keep a servant when his wife could do the
work. Besides, the servant's room enabled them to take in two boarders
instead of one. Martin placed the Swinburne and Browning on the chair,
took off his coat, and sat down on the bed. A screeching of asthmatic
springs greeted the weight of his body, but he did not notice them. He
started to take off his shoes, but fell to staring at the white plaster
wall opposite him, broken by long streaks of dirty brown where rain had
leaked through the roof. On this befouled background visions began to
flow and burn. He forgot his shoes and stared long, till his lips began
to move and he murmured, "Ruth."

"Ruth." He had not thought a simple sound could be so beautiful. It
delighted his ear, and he grew intoxicated with the repetition of it.
"Ruth." It was a talisman, a magic word to conjure with. Each time he
murmured it, her face shimmered before him, suffusing the foul wall with
a golden radiance. This radiance did not stop at the wall. It extended
on into infinity, and through its golden depths his soul went questing
after hers. The best that was in him was out in splendid flood. The
very thought of her ennobled and purified him, made him better, and made
him want to be better. This was new to him. He had never known women
who had made him better. They had always had the counter effect of
making him beastly. He did not know that many of them had done their
best, bad as it was. Never having been conscious of himself, he did not
know that he had that in his being that drew love from women and which
had been the cause of their reaching out for his youth. Though they had
often bothered him, he had never bothered about them; and he would never
have dreamed that there were women who had been better because of him.