"Poor boy!--poor, puzzled, tired brain that would fain judge Infinity by merely finite perception! You were a far truer poet, Theos Alwyn, when as a world-foolish, heaven-inspired lad you believed in God, and therefore, in godlike gladness, found all things good!" Alwyn looked up--his lips quivered. "Poet--poet!" he murmured--"why taunt me with the name?" He started upright in his chair--"Let me tell you all," he said suddenly; "you may as well know what has made me the useless wreck I am; though perhaps I shall only weary you." "Far from it," answered Heliobas gently. "Speak freely--but remember I do not compel your confidence." "On the contrary, I think you do!" and again that faint, half-mournful smile shone for an instant in his deep, dark eyes, "though you may not be conscious of it. Anyhow I feel impelled to unburden my heart to you: I have kept silence so long! You know what it is in the world, ... one must always keep silence, always shut in one's grief and force a smile, in company with the rest of the tormented, forced-smiling crowd. We can never be ourselves--our veritable selves--for, if we were, the air would resound with our ceaseless lamentations! It is HORRIBLE to think of all the pent-up sufferings of humanity--all the inconceivably hideous agonies that remain forever dumb and unrevealed! When I was young,--how long ago that seems! yes, though my actual years are taut thirty, I feel an alder-elde of accumulated centuries upon me--when I was young, the dream of my life was Poesy. Perhaps I inherited the fatal love of it from my mother--she was a Greek-and she had a subtle music in her that nothing could quell, not even my father's English coldness. She named me Theos, little guessing what a dreary sarcasm that name would prove! It was well, I think, that she died early." "Well for her, but perhaps not so well for you," said Heliobas with a keen, kindly glance at him.