"Heavens, man! have you no ambition? Here you are, with ten men's brains, and you sit--I don't know how you sit--in sackcloth, clearly, but whether for heaven or for Claudia I don't know. You think it odd to hear me preach ambition? I'm a lazy devil; but I have some power. Yes, I'm in my way a power. I might have been a greater. You might be a greater than ever I could." Stafford listened. "Do good if you can," Ayre went on, "and you can. But do something. Don't throw up the sponge because you had one fall. Make yourself something to live for." "In the Church?" "Yes--that suits you best. Your own Church or another. I've often wondered why you don't try the other." "I've been very near trying it before now." "It's a splendid field. Glorious! You might do anything." Stafford was silent, and Ayre sat regarding him closely. "Use my office for personal ambition?" he asked at last. "Pray don't talk cant. Do some good work, and raise yourself high enough to do more." "I doubt that motive." "Never mind the motive. Do, man, do! and don't puke. Leave Eugene to lounge through life. He does it nicely. You're made for more." Stafford looked up at him as he laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's all misery," he said. "Now, yes. But not always." "And it's not what I meant." "No, you meant to be a saint. Many of us do." "I feel what you mean, but I have scruples." Ayre looked at him curiously. "You're not a man of scruples really," he said; "you'll get over them." "Is that a compliment?" "Depends on whom you ask. You'll think of it? Think of what you might do and be. Now, I'm off." Stafford rose to show him out. "I'm not sure whether I ought to thank you," he said. "You will think of it?" "Yes." "And you won't kill yourself without seeing me again?" "You were afraid of that?" "Yes. Was I wrong?" "No." "You won't, then, without seeing me again?" "No; I promise." Ayre found his way downstairs, and into the street. "It will work," he said to himself. "If the Humane Society did its duty, I should have a gold medal. I have saved a life to-night--and a life worth saving." And Stafford, instead of going to bed, sat in his chair again, pondering the new things in his heart. CHAPTER XIV. Some People are as Fortunate as They Deserve to be.