find a certain relief, therefore, in talking to a person who wants something he hasn’t got, or who wants to be something that he isn’t.”

“Then you can find all the satisfaction you want in talking to me,” the boy declared, gloomily. “I am at the opposite pole of life, you see, to those friends of yours. I want everything I haven’t got. I am content with nothing that I have.”

“For instance?” Rochester asked, suggestively.

“I want freedom from the life of a slave,” the boy said. “I want money, the money that gives power. I want the right to shape my own life in my own way, and to my own ends, instead of being forced to remain a miserable, ineffective part of a useless scheme of existence.”

“Your desires are perfectly reasonable,” Rochester remarked, calmly. “Imagine, if you please—you seem to have plenty of imaginative force—that I am a fairy godfather. I may not look the part, but at least I can live up to it. I will provide the key for your escape. I will set you down in the world you are thirsting to enter. You shall take your place with the others, and run your race.”

The boy suddenly abandoned his huddled-up position, and rose to his feet. Against the background of empty air, and in the gathering darkness, he seemed thinner than ever, and smaller.

“I am going,” he said shortly. “It may seem amusing to you to make fun of me. I will not stay——”

“Don’t be a fool!” Rochester interrupted. “Haven’t you heard that I am more than half a madman? I am going to justify my character for eccentricity. You see my house down there—Beauleys, they call it? At twelve o’clock to-morrow, if you come to me, I will give you a sum of money sufficient to keep you for several years. I do not specify the amount at this moment, I shall think it over before you come.”

The boy had no words. He simply stared at his chance companion in blank astonishment.

“My offer seems to surprise you,” Rochester remarked, pleasantly. “It need not. You can go and tell the whole world of it, if you like, although, as a reputation for sanity is quite a valuable asset, nowadays, I should suggest that you keep your mouth closed. Still, if you do speak of it, no one will be in the least surprised. My friends—I haven’t many—call me the most eccentric man in Christendom. My enemies wonder how it is that I keep out of the asylum. Personally, I consider myself a perfectly reasonable mortal. I have whims, and I am not afraid to indulge them. I give you this money on one—or perhaps we had better say two conditions. The first is that you make a bonâ fide use of it. When I say that, I mean that you leave immediately your present employment, whatever it may be, and go out into the world with the steadfast purpose of finding for yourself the things which you saw a few minutes ago down in the valley there. You may not find them, but still I pledge you to the search. The second condition is that some day or other you find your way back into this part of the country, and tell me how my experiment has fared.”

The boy realized with a little gasp.

“Am I to thank you?” he asked.

“It would be usual but foolish,” Rochester answered. “I need no thanks, I deserve none. I yield to a whim, nothing else. I do this thing for my own pleasure. The sum of money which I propose to put into your hands will probably represent to me what a five-shilling piece might to you. This may sound vulgar, but it is true. I think that I need not warn you never to come to me for more. You need not look so horrified. I am quite sure that you would not do that. And there is one thing further.”

“Yes?” the boy asked. “Another condition?”

Rochester shook his head.

“No!” he said. “It is not a condition. It is just a little advice. The way through life hasn’t been made clear for everyone. You may find yourself brought up in the thorny paths. Take my advice. Don’t be content with anything less than success. If you fail, strip off your clothes, and swim out to sea on a sunny day, swim out until your strength fails and you must sink. It is the pleasantest form of oblivion I know of. Don’t live on. You are only a nuisance to yourself, and a bad influence to the rest of the world. Succeed, or make your little bow, my young friend. It is the best advice I can give you. Remember that the men who have failed, and who live on, are creatures of the gutter.”

“You are right!” the boy muttered. “I have read that somewhere, and it comes home to me. Failure is the one unforgivable sin. If I have to commit every other crime in the decalogue, I will at least avoid that one!”

Rochester shouldered his gun, and prepared to stroll off.

“At twelve o’clock to-morrow, then,” he said. “I wouldn’t hurry away now, if I were you. Sit down in your old place, and see if there isn’t a thread of gold down there in the valley.”

The boy obeyed almost mechanically. His heart was beating fast. His back was pressed against the cold rock. The fingers of both hands were nervously buried in the soft turf. Once more his eyes were riveted upon this land of shifting shadows. The whole panorama of life seemed suddenly unveiled before his eyes. More real, more brilliant now were the things upon which he looked. The thread of gold was indeed there!

CHAPTER I

A LETTER PROVES USEFUL

Bertrand Saton leaned against the stone coping of the bridge, and looked downwards, as though watching the seagulls circling round and round, waiting for their usual feast of scraps. The gulls, however, were only his excuse. He stood there, looking hard at the gray, muddy water beneath, trying to make up his mind to this final and inevitable act of despair. He had walked the last hundred yards almost eagerly. He had told himself that he was absolutely and entirely prepared for death. Yet the first sight of that gray, cold-looking river, had chilled him. He felt a new and unaccountable reluctance to quit the world which certainly seemed to have made up its mind that it had no need of him. His thoughts rushed backwards. “Swim out to sea on a sunny day,” he repeated to himself slowly. Yes, but this! It was a different thing, this! The longer he looked below, the more he shrank from such a death!

He stood upright with a little shiver, and began—it was not for the first time that day—a searching investigation into the contents of his pocket. The result was uninspiring. There was not an article there which would have fetched the price of a dose of poison. Then his fingers strayed into a breast-pocket which he seldom used, and brought out a letter, unopened, all grimy, and showing signs of having been there for some considerable time. He held it between his fingers, doubtful at first from where it had come. Then suddenly he remembered. He remembered the runaway horses in the Bois, and the strange-looking old woman who had sat in the carriage with grim, drawn lips and pallid face. He remembered the dash into the roadway, the brief, maddening race by the side of the horses, his clutch at the reins, the sense of being dragged along the dusty road. It was, perhaps, the one physically courageous action of his life. The horses were stopped, and the woman’s life was saved. He looked at the letter in his hand.

“Why not?” he asked himself softly.

He hesitated, and glanced downward once more toward the river. The sight seemed to decide him. He turned his weary footsteps again westward.

Walking with visible effort, and resting whenever he had a chance, he reached at