The January rain dripped monotonously on the window-sills, while Guy dragged book after book from the shelves that for only fifteen months had known their company. They were a melancholy sight, when he had stacked on the floor as many books as he could bear to lose, each shelf looking as disreputable as a row of teeth after a fight. A hundred volumes were gone, scarcely a dozen of which had he sacrificed without a pang. But a hundred volumes in order to raise £50 must sell at an average of ten shillings apiece, and in the light of such a test of value he regarded dismayfully the victims. Precious though they were to him, he could not fairly estimate the price they would fetch at more than five shillings each. That meant the loss of at least a hundred more books. Guy felt sick at the prospect and looked miserably along the rows for the farther tribute of martyrs they must be forced to yield. With intense difficulty he gathered together another fifty, and then with a final effort came again for still another fifty. Here was the first edition of Swinburne's Essays and Studies. That must go, for it might count as ten shillings and therefore save a weaker brother. Rossetti's Poems in this edition of 1871 must go in order to save the complete works, for he could copy out the sonnet which was not reprinted in the later edition. Here was Payne's translation of Villon which could certainly go, for it would fetch at least fifteen shillings, and he still possessed that tattered little French edition at two francs. The collected Verlaine might as well go, and the Mallarmé with the Rops frontispiece: the six volumes would save others better loved. Besides, he was sick of French poetry, wretched stuff most of it. Yet, here was Hérédia and the Pleiad and de Vigny, all of whom were beloved exceptions. He must preserve too the Italians, (what a solace Leopardi had been), though here were a couple of Infernos, one of which could surely be sacrificed. He opened the first: _Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,_ _Mi prese del costui piacer si forte,_ _Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona._ The words were stained with the blue anemone to which he had likened Pauline's eyes that first day of their love's declaration. He opened the other: _Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse,_ _Quando leggemmo il disiato riso_ _Esser baciato da cotanto amante,_ _Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,_ _La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante:_ And in this volume the words were stained with a ragged robin which unnoticed had come back to Plashers Mead in his pocket that May eve and which when it fell out later he had pressed between those burning pages. It was doubtless the worst kind of sentiment, but the two books must go back upon their shelves, and never must they be lost, even if everything but Shakespeare went.