resplendent sunset, and added slowly, dejectedly, as if speaking to
himself as much as to me--

"Yes, there is one thing worth living for--to help to make it all a
little more bearable for the others."

And then all at once, his face, so virile yet so delicate, so young and
yet so sad, reminded me of one I had seen in an old picture--the face of
an angel watching beside the dead Christ; and I cried--

"But are you certain He has made no sign; not hundreds of years ago,
but in your own lifetime? not to saint or apostle, but to you, yourself?
Has nothing which has happened to you, nothing you have ever seen or
read or heard, tempted you to hope in something better?"

"Yes," he said deliberately; "I have had my weak moments. My conviction
has wavered, not before religious teaching of any kind, however, nor
before Nature, in which some people seem to find such promise; but I
have met one or two women, and one man--all of them unknown,
unremarkable people--whom the world never heard of, nor is likely to
hear of, living uneventful obscure lives in out-of-the-way corners. For
instance, there is a lady in this very neighbourhood, a relation of Sir
George Atherley, I believe, Mrs. de No--"

"Her ladyship would like to see you in the drawing-room, sir," said
Castleman, suddenly coming in.

The doctor bowed to me and immediately left the room.