before the desk. Every day he would make the attempt to write, and
finally that obstinate wedge in his brain would give way and his soul
be set free.

He drew paper before him and took up a pen. For an hour he sat
motionless, bending all his power of intellect, all the artistic
instincts of his nature to the luring of his song-children from that
closed wing in his brain. But he could not even hear their peremptory
knocks as on the nights when he had turned from those summonses in
agony and terror. He would have welcomed them now and dragged the
visitants into the sunlight of his intelligence and forced the song
from their throats.

He took the poem from his pocket and read it over. But it gave him no
inspiration, it dulled his brain, rather, and made him feel baffled
and helpless. But he would not give up; and dawn found him still with
his pen in his hand. Then he went to bed and slept for a few hours.
That day he gave little attention to his affairs. His melancholy, held
at bay by the extraordinary experience through which he had passed,
returned and claimed him. He shut himself up in his library until the
following morning, and alternated the hours with fruitless attempts to
write and equally fruitless attempts to solve the problem in regard
to Weir. The next day and night, with the exception of a few hours'
restless sleep, were spent in the same way.

At the end of the third day not a word had flowed from his pen, not
a step nearer had he drawn to Weir. A dull despair took possession
of him. Had those song-children fled, discouraged, and was he to be
withheld from the one consolation of earthly happiness? He pushed back
the chair in which he had been sitting before his desk and went into