He made a mute gesture of denial, and with slow difficulty drew
another chair up beside mine, and dropped into it with an air of
heavy weariness.

"I am not ill now,"--he said--"A little while ago I was very ill. I
was in pain--horrible pain! Brayle did what he could for me--it was
not much. He says I must expect to suffer now and again--until--
until the end."

Impulsively I laid my hand on his.

"I am very sorry!" I said, gently--"I wish I could be of some use to
you!"

He looked at me with a curious wistfulness.

"You could, no doubt, if I believed as you do,"--he replied, and
then was silent for a moment. Presently he spoke again.

"Do you know I am rather disappointed in you?"

"Are you?" And I smiled a little--"Why?"

He did not answer at once. He seemed absorbed in troubled musings.
When he resumed, it was in a low, meditative tone, almost as if he
were speaking to himself.

"When I first met you--you remember?--at one of those social
'crushes' which make the London season so infinitely tedious,--I was