"H'm. Then some larger interest--politics, reform, philanthropy?
Something to take you out of yourself."

"Yes. I understand," said Granice wearily.

"Above all, don't lose heart. I see hundreds of cases like
yours," the doctor added cheerfully from the threshold.

On the doorstep Granice stood still and laughed. Hundreds of
cases like his--the case of a man who had committed a murder, who
confessed his guilt, and whom no one would believe! Why, there
had never been a case like it in the world. What a good figure
Stell would have made in a play: the great alienist who couldn't
read a man's mind any better than that!

Granice saw huge comic opportunities in the type.

But as he walked away, his fears dispelled, the sense of
listlessness returned on him. For the first time since his
avowal to Peter Ascham he found himself without an occupation,
and understood that he had been carried through the past weeks
only by the necessity of constant action. Now his life had once
more become a stagnant backwater, and as he stood on the street
corner watching the tides of traffic sweep by, he asked himself
despairingly how much longer he could endure to float about in
the sluggish circle of his consciousness.

The thought of self-destruction recurred to him; but again his
flesh recoiled. He yearned for death from other hands, but he