back. He would try not to be cowardly. Then, with the closing of the
soul-windows, mental and physical fatigue brought their own gentle
healing, and in the cold, little study, bare, even, of many books, with
the fire smoldering cheerlessly before him, he fell asleep.

* * * * *

A few miles away, in a suburb of the same great city, in a large library
peopled with books, luxurious with pictures and soft-toned rugs and
carved dark furniture, a man sat staring into the fire. The six-foot
logs crackled and roared up the chimney, and the blaze lighted the wide,
dignified room. From the high chimney-piece, that had been the feature
of a great hall in Florence two centuries before, grotesque heads of
black oak looked down with a gaze which seemed weighted with age-old
wisdom and cynicism, at the man's sad face. The glow of the lamp,
shining like a huge gray-green jewel, lighted unobtrusively the generous
sweep of table at his right hand, and on it were books whose presence
meant the thought of a scholar and the broad interests of a man of
affairs. Each detail of the great room, if there had been an observer of
its quiet perfection, had an importance of its own, yet each exquisite
belonging fell swiftly into the dimness of the background of a picture
when one saw the man who was the master. Among a thousand picked men,
his face and figure would have been distinguished. People did not call
him old, for the alertness and force of youth radiated from him, and his
gray eyes were clear and his color fresh, yet the face was lined
heavily, and the thick thatch of hair shone in the firelight silvery
white. Face and figure were full of character and breeding, of life
lived to its utmost, of will, responsibility, success. Yet to-night the
spring of the mechanism seemed broken, and the noble head lay back
against the brown leather of his deep chair as listlessly as a tired