The wind was causing the fire to be more a nuisance than a comfort, and every now and then a gust of smoke shot out of the narrow stove, obscuring the page before him, and making him cough and swear. The atmosphere was villainous, but, excepting in these moments, he was unconscious of it. He was near the closing lines. His empty pipe was gripped between his teeth, and he wanted to refill it, but he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes from the paper while he stretched for his pouch and the matches. He meant to refill it the instant he had written the last words, but now an access of uncertainty assailed him and he could not decide upon them. He stared at the paper without daring to set a sentence down, and drew at the empty bowl mechanically, his palate craving for the taste of tobacco, while his sight was magnetised by the pen's point hovering under his hand. He sat so for a quarter of an hour. Then he wrote with supreme satisfaction what he had thought of first and rejected. His pen was dropped. He drew a breath of relief and thanksgiving, and lit his pipe. His novel was done. Unlike the novelist in fiction again, he did not mourn beautifully that the characters who had peopled his solitude for twelve months, and whom he loved, were about to leave him for the harsher criticism of the world. He was profoundly glad of it. He felt exhilaration leap in his jaded veins as he picked up his pen and added "The End." He felt that he was free of an enormous load, a tremendous responsibility, of which he had acquitted himself well. Almost every morning, with rare exceptions, for a year he had, so to speak, awakened with this unfinished novel staring him in the face; almost every night for a year he had gone up the stairs to the bedroom remembering what a lump of writing had still to be accomplished. And now it was done; and he couldn't do it better. Blessed thought! If he recast it chapter by chapter and phrase by phrase, he could not handle the idea more carefully or strongly than he had handled it in the bulky package that lay in front of him--the story told!