After all, had he not been a fool to struggle so long against his fate? Clearly every one was against him. He would fight no longer; he would give up that notion—that high-flown, unpractical notion of paying off his father’s debts. To gain an honest living was apparently impossible, the world afforded him no facilities for that, but it afforded him countless opportunities of leading another sort of life. Why should he not take what he could get? Life was miserable and worthless enough, but at least he might put an end to the hideous monotony of the search after work, at least he might plunge into a phase of life which would have at any rate the charm of novelty. It was one of those autumn days when shadow and sun alternate quickly; a gleam of sunshine now flooded the street with brightness. It seemed to him that a gleam of light had also broken the dreariness of his life. Possibly it might be a fleeting pleasure, but why should he not seize upon it? His nature, however, was not one to be hurried thoughtlessly into vice. If he sinned he would do so deliberately. He looked the two lives fairly in the face now, and in his heart he knew which attracted him most. The discovery startled him. “The pleasing veil which serves to hide self from itself” was suddenly torn down, and he was seized with the sort of terror which we most of us have experienced: “As that bright moment’s unexpected glare Shows us the best and worst of what we are.” “Why not? why not?” urged the tempter. And the vague shrinking seemed to grow less; nothing in heaven or earth seemed real to him; he felt that nothing mattered a straw. As well that way as any other. Why not? It was the critical moment of his life; just as in old pictures one sees an angel and a devil struggling hard to turn the balance, so now it seemed that his fate rested with the first influence he happened to come across.