“Can’t do?” He opened his eyes. “Haven’t I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way,” he continued. “You don’t do it in yours.” “Ours is so devilish difficult,” I weakly observed. “So is mine. We each choose our own. There’s no compulsion. You won’t come down and smoke?” “No. I want to think this thing out.” “You’ll tell me then in the morning that you’ve laid me bare?” “I’ll see what I can do; I’ll sleep on it. But just one word more,” I added. We had left the room--I walked again with him a few steps along the passage. “This extraordinary ‘general intention,’ as you call it--for that’s the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it--is then generally a sort of buried treasure?” His face lighted. “Yes, call it that, though it’s perhaps not for me to do so.” “Nonsense!” I laughed. “You know you’re hugely proud of it.” “Well, I didn’t propose to tell you so; but it _is_ the joy of my soul!” “You mean it’s a beauty so rare, so great?” He hesitated a moment. “The loveliest thing in the world!” We had stopped, and on these words he left me; but at the end of the corridor, while I looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake his head and wave his finger. “Give it up--give it up!” This wasn’t a challenge--it was fatherly advice. If I had had one of his books at hand I would have repeated my recent act of faith--I would have spent half the night with him. At three o’clock in the morning, not sleeping, remembering moreover how indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole down to the library with a candle. There wasn’t, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the house. IV