face forward to his lips--a sort of passionate tenderness and shame,
at the softness and warmth of that flushed cheek, at her beauty and
trustful gratitude. She would soon have given herself to him--that one!
He had never gone there again! And to this day he did not know why he
had abstained; to this day he did not know whether he were glad or sorry
not to have plucked that rose. He must surely have been very different
then! Queer business, life--queer, queer business!--to go through it
never knowing what you would do next. Ah! to be like Keith, steady,
buttoned-up in success; a brass pot, a pillar of society! Once, as a
boy, he had been within an ace of killing Keith, for sneering at
him. Once in Southern Italy he had been near killing a driver who was
flogging his horse. And now, that dark-faced, swinish bully who had
ruined the girl he had grown to love--he had done it! Killed him! Killed
a man!

He who did not want to hurt a fly. The chemist's window comforted him
with the sudden thought that he had at home that which made him safe, in
case they should arrest him. He would never again go out without some
of those little white tablets sewn into the lining of his coat. Restful,
even exhilarating thought! They said a man should not take his own life.
Let them taste horror--those glib citizens! Let them live as that girl
had lived, as millions lived all the world over, under their canting
dogmas! A man might rather even take his life than watch their cursed
inhumanities.

He went into the chemist's for a bromide; and, while the man was
mixing it, stood resting one foot like a tired horse. The "life" he had
squeezed out of that fellow! After all, a billion living creatures gave
up life each day, had it squeezed out of them, mostly. And perhaps
not one a day deserved death so much as that loathly fellow. Life! a