He then told me how he had made a study of Miss Darrow's movements,
and had met her many times since; in fact, so often that he fancied,
from something in her manner, that she had begun to wonder if his
frequent appearance were not something more than a coincidence. The
fear that she might think him dogging her footsteps worried him, and
he began as sedulously to avoid the places he knew she frequented,
as he previously had sought them. This, he confessed, made him
utterly miserable. He had, to be sure, never spoken to her, but it
was everything to be able to see her. When he could endure it no
longer he had come to me under pretence of feeling ill, that he
might, when he had made my acquaintance, get me to introduce him to
the Darrows.

You will understand, of course, that I did not learn all this at our
first interview. Maitland did not take me into his confidence until
we had had a conference at his laboratory devoted entirely to
scientific speculations. On this occasion he surprised me not a
little by turning to me suddenly and saying: "Some of the grandest
sacrifices the world has ever known, if one may judge by the
fortitude they require, and the pain they cause, have occurred in
the laboratory." I looked at him inquiringly, and he continued:
"When a man, simply for the great love of truth that is in him, has
given his life to the solution of some problem, and has at last
arrived, after years of closest application, at some magnificent
generalisation--when he has, perhaps, published his conclusions,
and received the grateful homage of all lovers of truth, his life
has, indeed, borne fruit. Of him may it then be justly said that
his

"'. . . life hath blossomed downward like