lives for ever. Boris would know; Genevieve--the only comfort was that
she would never know. It seemed, as I thought it over, that I had found
the meaning of that sense of obligation which had persisted all through
my delirium, and the only possible answer to it. So, when I was quite
ready, I beckoned Jack to me one day, and said--

"Jack, I want Boris at once; and take my dearest greeting to
Genevieve...."

When at last he made me understand that they were both dead, I fell into
a wild rage that tore all my little convalescent strength to atoms. I
raved and cursed myself into a relapse, from which I crawled forth some
weeks afterward a boy of twenty-one who believed that his youth was gone
for ever. I seemed to be past the capability of further suffering, and
one day when Jack handed me a letter and the keys to Boris' house, I took
them without a tremor and asked him to tell me all. It was cruel of me to
ask him, but there was no help for it, and he leaned wearily on his thin
hands, to reopen the wound which could never entirely heal. He began very
quietly--

"Alec, unless you have a clue that I know nothing about, you will not be
able to explain any more than I what has happened. I suspect that you
would rather not hear these details, but you must learn them, else I
would spare you the relation. God knows I wish I could be spared the
telling. I shall use few words.

"That day when I left you in the doctor's care and came back to Boris, I
found him working on the 'Fates.' Genevieve, he said, was sleeping under
the influence of drugs. She had been quite out of her mind, he said. He
kept on working, not talking any more, and I watched him. Before long, I