than poetic yearnings, or the power to propound rhetorically to the
world my grievances or agonies.

Miss Mardon's face was getting worse, and as by this time it was late,
I stayed but a little while longer.



CHAPTER V--MISS ARBOUR



For some months I continued without much change in my monotonous
existence. I did not see Mardon often, for I rather dreaded him. I
could not resist him, and I shrank from what I saw to be inevitably
true when I talked to him. I can hardly say it was cowardice. Those
may call it cowardice to whom all associations are nothing, and to whom
beliefs are no more than matters of indifferent research; but as for
me, Mardon's talk darkened my days and nights. I never could
understand the light manner in which people will discuss the gravest
questions, such as God and the immortality of the soul. They gossip
about them over their tea, write and read review articles about them,
and seem to consider affirmation or negation of no more practical
importance than the conformation of a beetle. With me the struggle to
retain as much as I could of my creed was tremendous. The dissolution
of Jesus into mythologic vapour was nothing less than the death of a
friend dearer to me then than any other friend whom I knew.

But the worst stroke of all was that which fell upon the doctrine of a
life beyond the grave. In theory I had long despised the notion that