For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself-- how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading vista of golden possibility--a possibility of which he had never dared to think--even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility--and yet surely it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other hand-- For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching, clenching.... Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant whiteness. She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted.... He looked into their depths.... His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly. "Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell you what to do?" She answered, with infinite weariness: "I--I don't know, Tom.... I'm tired--so, so tired...." And then, abruptly: "Tell me.... Yes, tell me. What shall I do?" She waited, deep eyes lifted, little head poised wearily upon white, rounded throat. He answered, very slowly--with effort that even he could not conceal: "Kate, do you remember that day in June, eight years ago, when you walked down the aisle of Old Trinity. Do you remember how the sun shone in at the windows, flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden motes? John Schuyler met you at the altar; and to him you said, 'For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.'" Gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, with great tenderness. "Stick, Kate," he advised, softly. "Stick." And that was all. [Illustration] CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR. THE SHROUD OF A SOUL. It had been arranged that Blake, again, was to go to him first. Little had been heard of John Schuyler, of late. A drop to desuetude may of its last half be far more silent than of its first. One gathers momentum, as one descends, whether the descent be physical, or moral. At the inception comes the gradual slipping--the vast, frantic effort to stay that slipping--the exertion, the hysteria, the fright, the remorse, the stretching out of hands to aid and of souls to help.... Then, things become different. There comes a vast silence. The hands draw back; the souls are hidden; and when Hope itself lifts its pinions and soars away, then there be little left indeed. John Schuyler, deserted of friends, deprived of all usefulness in the life that he had loved, found it to be so; and, finding, tried to think no more.... If only the Great God would take from him his brain! ... But He did not....