her as I had not dreamed myself capable of loving.

And all the while this man talked and talked.

I have a theory that speech, persevered in, is more efficacious in
times of trouble than silent sympathy. Up to a certain point it
maddens almost beyond endurance; but, that point past, it soothes.
At least, it was so in my case. Gradually I found myself hating
him less. Soon I began to listen, then to answer. Before I left
the club that night, the first mad frenzy, in which I could have
been capable of anything, had gone from me, and I walked home,
feeling curiously weak and helpless, but calm, to begin the new
life.

Three years passed before I met Cynthia. I spent those years
wandering in many countries. At last, as one is apt to do, I
drifted back to London, and settled down again to a life which,
superficially, was much the same as the one I had led in the days
before I knew Audrey. My old circle in London had been wide, and I
found it easy to pick up dropped threads. I made new friends,
among them Cynthia Drassilis.

I liked Cynthia, and I was sorry for her. I think that, about that
time I met her, I was sorry for most people. The shock of Audrey's
departure had had that effect upon me. It is always the bad nigger
who gets religion most strongly at the camp-meeting, and in my
case 'getting religion' had taken the form of suppression of self.
I never have been able to do things by halves, or even with a
decent moderation. As an egoist I had been thorough in my egoism;
and now, fate having bludgeoned that vice out of me, I found