and more eagerly he sought and steadily harboured these treacherous fancies. They acted as a mental narcotic, relaxing and relieving that prolonged and intolerable tension of the brain. But then, at this moment, and as if in wretched and bitter mockery, there must come crowding into his mind the saws and sayings, so often on his lips, of those would-be mundane philosophers whose cry to us is ever, not to waste our hour, to be jovial without remorse and while we may, because nothing lasts, and in good time we are sure to discover it is all dust and ashes. Preach to a castaway in the desert about the saltness of all the springs, and then call upon him to quench his thirst in brine. Who can enjoy where the very ground of enjoyment has been taken away from under his feet, and the faculty itself impaired or destroyed? Then, again, how palpable the mask, how unutterably dreary and contemptible is the voice of a jollity that bids us fill the cup to drown remembrance, because dream, say, do what you please, Decay is king for ever and ever! As well might the sexton bid us come and make merry with him in the churchyard vault. Strange wine-poets these! Cold ascetics in their souls, let them write drinking songs by the score, we shall feel that their glass is dry, that their heart has never bounded or burned for anything or anyone, that the light of their fancy, even, is feeble and faint.

And

the hollow ring of this pseudorevelling, this self-styled merriment, leaves us a thousand times more frigid and dismal than before. Let such men preach by all means— rhyme if they must-in their only true and lawful colours, as cold and sententious homily makers; but, in the name of all good company, let them drop the hypocritical veil of mirth. Carefully

they harp upon it that our hearts desire we are sure to lose, one way or the other for as fast as we get it, it turns to corruption, and we cannot keep it. Carouse now, and be happy! Make the most of what you possess, but never forget that what you are cherishing is utterly worthless, and will play you false to-morrow. Now fill up and make merry! For what fools and gamblers do they take us? This is drinking out of a death's head indeed. If the aim of a philosophy of existence be to reconcile us to death by making life and the world loathsome in our eyes, these have done the work more thoroughly than the most rigid, self-mortifying anchorite that ever made of it a purgatory as a set-off to his heaven

to come.

For Ichabod there was at least one present reality. Life was insupportable. supportable. Therefore away with it seemed the logical outcome. Hitherto he had gone on bearing, nor loving nor exactly hating it. Some creatures find the necessary conditions of existence in the polar ice fields, some in the dark and underground.

He had stifled the germs of most ordinary mortal feelings as fast as they rose within him. One only had eluded his mastery. He knew it now. And it might be that the transient taste thereof was the thing that made it seem impossible to him at this moment to take up his old life again.

Tony and Ianthe had left their gondola. They were standing alone on a marble balcony overlooking the water, watching silently as the night gathered round them and the sky filled with stars.

A large black boat came gliding along in the distance. The plash of the oars was heard mixed with the voices of the serenaders and their impetuous popular love

songs:

Senz' amore il pellegrino
Va perduto un deserto,
Senz' amore è grave il serto
Sulle chiome al vincitor.

The gondola remained stationary under the balcony, the rowers resting on their oars, but the chorus continued with vigour, and the passionate ring of southern souls that they were:

Senz' amore il fior divino
Si scolora alla bellezza,
Nè le corde han più dolcezza
Nella man' del trovator.

Perhaps they knew to whom they were singing, for Tony and Ianthe passed nowhere unnoticed, or unadmired, least of all in Venice. Long they listened in silence till the gondola floated onwards again, and the echoes of the song were wafted away in the far distance.

No-Ichabod was inly persuaded now that he would never get the multitude to subscribe to his own convictions. And even if he did, would he himself be the happier? Not a jot. The impotence of his creed, except to paralyse energy, stood before him in all its dreary nakedness. At the same time he knew it would cling to him, and that he could not rid himself of it now. Intense feelings are what men need to reconcile them to life, and help them to make the most of it. Destroy the possibility of these, and there is no shrinking from the conclusion when it comes too soon.

Life may out. Le jeu ne vaut plus la chandelle. That ex-angel of light rises before us as a demon, and then, how far sterner and more terrible is he than Azrael! For whom, here or elsewhere, there can be no vision of unfulfilled desires, no heaven or hell, what remains to seek ?

that were ever worshipped, he cannot replace them; not if he would. And yet he cannot breathe in the new atmosphere which he bas created. So he is glad to welcome slumber, no longer as the renewal of life, but as a door of escape from it.

Oh for a second Prometheus to rekindle the flagging spirit of mortality! Fear not but he will come. But while we are waiting, instead of the Titan there arises an in

visible one, who goes round quenching the divine light in hearts where it was dim before, and where nothing then is left, to save them from outer darkness and a second chaos that is worse than the first.

Hammond, returning home from his dinner party about midnight, found a message that had just been left for him, a request that he would come over to Ichabod's chambers at once.

He obeyed the summons, oppressed by one of those unpleasant forebodings that are sure to be verified. But the news awaiting him went beyond his gravest fears or speculations. He expected to find Ichabod dangerously ill-he arrived to hear that he was dead.

When-how had it happened? The servant, roused and puzzled by the incessant howling of Tony Sebright's little dog, which had been left in Ichabod's charge, hac come into the room about eleven o'clock, and found his master_on the sofa, asleep, he supposed. But taking alarm at last, he had sent out first for a doctor, who had only arrived to certify that it was too late for anything to be done, and afterwards for Hammond, who, having been the last person who saw him alive, might be able to throw some light on the dark subject.

But Hammond could only state that he had sat with him up to

seven o'clock talking to him on the subject of his health, about which there had lately been reason for uneasiness. He had left him to

all appearances cool and tranquil. The immediate cause of deaththe opium-well, his friend had long been in the habit of taking it for sleeplessness, that was all he had to tell. The idea of suicide was too absurd to be entertained for a moment, as not the smallest motive or clue could be assigned, but the end must for ever remain a mystery. Carelessness, an overdose, a mistake, supervening on a weakened state of the constitution, this was the only plausible explanation, and the one the world must accept.

Even Hammond knew no more. What further he might suspect from the empty phial and certain impressions and recollections that flashed back upon him nowthis though it made him gravely reproach himself for having left him even for those few hours-was

a secret he was in no way bound to impart to the curious world. Beyond their scrutiny and their ken now, Ichabod should rest beyond their condemnation.

"Poor fellow!" Such was his life's epilogue, spoken by Hammond, who reserved for himself the right of passing private judgment in the matter. "He ought to have done well-he promised to; but there was a screw loose somewhere. Not that that matters always-but in his case it meant smash." He mused a little then added

"And he was in love with Ianthe Lee! He kept it from Tony, from herself from himself, I believe, to the last. But I saw it."

There is ineffable pleasure in the sense of superior insight. Hammond drew himself up, sighed, and concluded his funeral oration saying,

"Well he was a clever fellowmight almost have made a philosopher-but for his philosophy."