soon, however, to make a friend of Clive Lepage, and to see always the
best of that friend, being himself so true. At last the day came when
they both graduated together in science, a bright and happy day,
succeeded by one still brighter, when they both entered a great firm as
junior partners. Afterwards befell the meeting with Rose Varcoe; and he
thought of how he praised his friend Lepage to her, and brought him to be
introduced to her. He recalled all those visions that came to him when,
his professional triumphs achieved, he should have a happy home, and
happy faces by his fireside. And the face was to be that of Rose Varcoe,
and the others, faces of those who should be like her and like himself.
He saw, or rather felt, that face clouded and anxious when he went away
ill and blind for health's sake. He did not write to her. The doctors
forbade him that. He did not ask her to write, for his was so steadfast a
nature that he did not need letters to keep him true; and he thought she
must be the same. He did not understand a woman's heart, how it needs
remembrances, and needs to give remembrances.

Hume's face in the light of this fire seemed calm and cold, yet behind it
was an agony of memory--the memory of the day when he discovered that
Lepage was married to Rose, and that the trusted friend had grown famous
and well-to-do on the offspring of his brain. His first thought had been
one of fierce determination to expose this man who had falsified all
trust. But then came the thought of the girl, and, most of all, there
came the words of his dying mother, "Be good, my boy, and God will make
you great"; and for his mother's sake he had compassion on the girl, and
sought no restitution from her husband. And now, ten years later, he did
not regret that he had stayed his hand. The world had ceased to call
Lepage a genius. He had not fulfilled the hope once held of him. Hume
knew this from occasional references in scientific journals.