"He still writes, then? The force has not gone?" he asked briefly, and
then closed his eyes again to listen.

"He works like a fury," she went on, "but produces nothing"--she
hesitated a moment--"nothing that he can use or sell. His earnings have
practically ceased, and he makes a precarious living by book-reviewing
and odd jobs--very odd, some of them. Yet, I am certain his talent has
not really deserted him finally, but is merely--"

Again Mrs. Sivendson hesitated for the appropriate word.

"In abeyance," he suggested, without opening his eyes.

"Obliterated," she went on, after a moment to weigh the word, "merely
obliterated by something else--"

"By some one else?"

"I wish I knew. All I can say is that he is haunted, and temporarily his
sense of humour is shrouded--gone--replaced by something dreadful that
writes other things. Unless something competent is done, he will simply
starve to death. Yet he is afraid to go to a doctor for fear of being
pronounced insane; and, anyhow, a man can hardly ask a doctor to take a
guinea to restore a vanished sense of humour, can he?"

"Has he tried any one at all--?"

"Not doctors yet. He tried some clergymen and religious people; but they
know so little and have so little intelligent sympathy. And most of them
are so busy balancing on their own little pedestals--"