Sturton’s descent into the gutter was delayed for a few years by a clerical appointment he begged from some firm with whom he had traded before his bankruptcy. The appointment could not have been lucrative. He attended the office every day, but nothing else seemed to have been expected of him. He could have been capable of nothing else. Whatever his potentialities may once have been, they were hopelessly stultified by then. I used to meet him now and again in those days of his clerkship; and let him gorge himself at my expense. That was his single pleasure and desire. Poverty had exaggerated the cravings of his gluttony. And as I stood respectfully within the fold of the screen and looked down at the flabby coarseness of the horrible old man in the bed, I reflected that his body must in its own way have represented a highly successful community of cells. There had been no distractions of purpose in the entity we knew as Henry Sturton; no rending uncertainties to upset his nerves and interfere with the steady industry of his bodily functions. I was thinking that when he opened his eyes and I caught a glimpse of the fierce and splendid thing his body had always hidden from us. I saw it then, beyond any shadow of doubt--the spirit that had been imprisoned for seventy years, lying in wait eternally patient and vigilant, for this one brief instant of expression. It looked at me without recognition, yet with an amazing intensity, as if it knew that all its long agony of suppression would find no other compensation than this. So near release, his soul, still longing to touch life at some point, had seized its opportunity when that intolerably gross barrier of his body had been mangled and dislocated by this long-delayed accident. Then Henry Sturton coughed, and I saw the beautiful eager stare die out of his eyes, and give place to that look of gross desire I had always loathed. Even then, I believe, he craved for food. But the next moment his eyes closed and his lips spurted a stream of blood. The nurse was with him instantly, pushing me aside. I took advantage of her preoccupation to stay till the end. I hoped for one more sight of his soul. I thought it might take advantage of another intermission before the work of the community was abruptly closed. But I did not see it again. He spoke once, two minutes before he died. “God blast,” was what he said. THE CONVERT For the first time in his life, Henry Wolverton had been seriously upset. His had been an orderly life. Even when he was at Shrewsbury, he had escaped bullying and other disturbances. He had been marked out as a future scholar who would be a credit to the school; and his calm air of reserve had also protected him. He might be classed as a “swat,” but he was not the kind of swat who gets singled out for bullying. He was no good at games, but he had a handsome, dignified presence, and he was never known to put on side.