"I've felt that," said Isbister with a grimace. "But
it makes it better for him."

"If he wakes."

"If he wakes," echoed Isbister. "Do you notice
the pinched-ill look of his nose, and the way in which
his eyelids sink?"

Warming looked and thought for a space. "I doubt
if he will wake," he said at last.

"I never properly understood," said Isbister, "what
it was brought this on. He told me something about
overstudy. I've often been curious."

"He was a man of considerable gifts, but spasmodic,
emotional. He had grave domestic troubles,
divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from
that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort.
He was a fanatical Radical -- a Socialist -- or typical
Liberal, as they used to call themselves,-of the advanced
school. Energetic -- flighty -- undisciplined. Overwork
upon a controversy did this for him. I remember
the pamphlet he wrote -- a curious production. Wild,
whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies.
Some of them are already exploded, some of them are
established facts. But for the most part to read such
a thesis is to realise how full the world is of
unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to