Then, as though choosing contrasts, follows a fair, laughing face. I saw it in the life only a few hours ago--at least, not it, but the poor daub that Evil has painted over it, hating the sweetness underlying. And as I stand gazing at it, wishing it were of the dead who change not, there drifts back from the shadows that other face, the one of the wicked mouth and the tender eyes, so that I stand again helpless between the two I loved so well, he from whom I learned my first steps in manhood, she from whom I caught my first glimpse of the beauty and the mystery of woman. And again the cry rises from my heart, “Whose fault was it--yours or hers?” And again I hear his mocking laugh as he answers, “Whose fault? God made us.” And thinking of her and of the love I bore her, which was as the love of a young pilgrim to a saint, it comes into my blood to hate him. But when I look into his eyes and see the pain that lives there, my pity grows stronger than my misery, and I can only echo his words, “God made us.” Merry faces and sad, fair faces and foul, they ride upon the wind; but the centre round which they circle remains always the one: a little lad with golden curls more suitable to a girl than to a boy, with shy, awkward ways and a silent tongue, and a grave, old-fashioned face. And, turning from him to my old brick friend, I ask: “Would he know me, could he see me, do you think?” “How should he,” answers the old House, “you are so different to what he would expect. Would you recognise your own ghost, think you?” “It is sad to think he would not recognise me,” I say. “It might be sadder if he did,” grumbles the old House. We both remained silent for awhile; but I know of what the old House is thinking. Soon it speaks as I expected. “You--writer of stories, why don't you write a book about him? There is something that you know.” It is the favourite theme of the old House. I never visit it but it suggests to me this idea. “But he has done nothing?” I say. “He has lived,” answers the old House. “Is not that enough?” “Aye, but only in London in these prosaic modern times,” I persist. “How of such can one make a story that shall interest the people?” The old House waxes impatient of me. “'The people!'” it retorts, “what are you all but children in a dim-lit room, waiting until one by one you are called out to sleep. And one mounts upon a stool and tells a tale to the others who have gathered round. Who shall say what will please them, what will not.”