not on the sunlit surface of this earth, but in the vaults and
dwelling-places of the Dead beneath it.

Since this preoccupation, this curiosity, this nostalgia, has
exercised so enormous a fascination in the past, I found it not
impossible to imagine some modern favourite of fortune falling a
victim to this malady of the soul; until at last, growing weary
of other satisfactions, he might be drawn to open for himself
the dark portal and join the inhabitants of that dim region,
"Kings and Counsellors of the earth, Princes that had gold, who
filled their houses with silver." This, as I say, was the notion
that haunted me, the link my imagination forged between Sir
Eustace Carr's presence in that dark Venetian church, and his
self-caused death some years later. But whether it is really a
clue to that unexplained mystery, or whether it is nothing more
than a somewhat sinister fancy, of course, I cannot say.




_The Lord Mayor_


An arctic wind was blowing; it cut through me as I stood there.
The boot-black was finishing his work and complaints.

"But I should be 'appy, sir, if only I could make four bob a
day," he said.

I looked down at him; it seemed absurd, the belief of this