A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his customary self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection of the unfortunate young man.

`Good heavens, dear Somerset,' he cried, `what ails you? Let me offer you a touch of spirits.'

But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.

`Let me be,' he said. `I am lost; you have caught me in the toils. Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And now - what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms? To think,' he cried, `that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned imbroglio!' And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled upon the sofa.

`My God,' said Zero, `is this possible? And I so filled with tenderness and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a patriot by the morality of the religious tract? I thought you were a good agnostic.'

`Mr. Jones,' said Somerset, `it is in vain to argue. I boast myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics. Well! what matters it? what signifies a form of words? I regard you as a reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel. You would blow up others? Well then, understand: I want, with every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow up you!'

`Somerset, Somerset!' said Zero, turning very pale, `this is wrong; this is very wrong. You pain, you wound me, Somerset.'

`Give me a match!' cried Somerset wildly. `Let me set fire to this incomparable monster! Let me perish with him in his fall!'

`For God's sake,' cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, `for God's sake command yourself! We stand upon the brink; death yawns around us; a man - a stranger in this foreign land - one whom you have called your friend - '

`Silence!' cried Somerset, `you are no friend, no friend of mine. I look on you with loathing, like a toad: my flesh creeps with physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.'

Zero burst into tears. `Alas!' he sobbed, `this snaps the last link that bound me to humanity. My friend disowns - he insults me. I am indeed accurst.'

Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of front. The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from the room and from the house. The first dash of his escape carried him hard upon half-way to the next police-office: but presently began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels. Was he an agnostic? had he a right to act? Away with such nonsense, and let Zero perish! ran his thoughts. And then again: had he not promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and that with open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit honour? But honour? what was honour? A figment, which, in the hot pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside. Ay, but crime? A figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded. All day, he wandered in the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night, patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the wayside in the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept. His gods had fallen. He who had chosen the broad, daylit, unencumbered paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of honour. He who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as the predatory eagle's, though with no design to prey; he who had clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping murderer or to embrace