if they stayed to do evil. He told himself that his holiday had not
rested him enough. But he never thought for a moment of diminishing his
work. Success swept him ever onward to more exertion. As his power grew,
his appetite for it grew. And he enjoyed his increasing fortune.

At last Nigel rang at his door. Isaacson could not see him, but sent out
word to make an appointment for the evening. They were to meet at eight
at an orchestral concert in Queen's Hall.

Isaacson was a little late in keeping this engagement. He came in
quickly and softly between two movements of Tschaikowsky's "Pathetic
Symphony," found Nigel in his stall, and, with a word, sat down beside
him. The conductor raised his baton. The next movement began.

In the music there was a throbbing like the throbbing of a heart, that
persisted and persisted with a beautiful yet terrible monotony. Often
Isaacson had listened to this symphony, been overwhelmed by the two
effects of this monotony, an effect of loveliness and an effect of
terror that were inextricably combined. To-night, either because he was
very tired or for some other reason, the mystery of the sadness of this
music, which floats through all its triumph, appealed to him more than
usual, and in a strangely poignant way. The monotonous pulsation was
like the pulse of life, that life in which he and the man beside him
were for a time involved, from which presently they would be released,
whether with or against their wills. The pulse of life! Suddenly from
the general his mind passed to the particular. He thought of a woman's
pulse, strong, regular, inexorable. He seemed to feel it beneath his
fingers, the pulse of Mrs. Chepstow. And he knew that he had thought of
her because Nigel Armine was thinking of her, that he connected her with
this music because Nigel was doing the same. This secretly irritated