"You reckon you understand him?" "A little, perhaps." "Then perhaps you'll be able to understand this letter. It reached me yesterday." He took it from his pocket and handed it to me. It was on Valley Hotel notepaper and ran thus: "DEAR SEVERN,--Thanks for your letter telling me the bad news. I'm no good at writing, but you'll know what I mean when I just say I'm sorry. If there were anything I could do, I'd do it, but there isn't anything. You've been right and I've been wrong in our ways of looking at things, and I can see that now, though I couldn't years ago when we argued about progress. Please don't ask me to come to the End House yet--I don't feel I _could_ come. All you have done for me--and especially the chance you've given me of being here--makes me feel ashamed and a prig. Sincerely yours, "TERRY." Severn was smiling when I had finished reading. "Can you give me some or any idea what it's all about?" he asked, with a whimsical lift of his eyebrows. I read it through once again very carefully before I replied. Somehow I _felt_ the meaning of it right enough, but to explain it to Severn was another matter. Nor was I at all sure that I would explain it, even if I could. I said at last: "I think it shows the state of his mind more than anything else." "Do you mean that he's off his head?" "Oh, no--not that, by any means." "Then what?" "I don't know that I can tell you exactly.... It seems to me that he's in a sort of slough of despond--he's overworked and over-worried himself into a state of acute mental and spiritual depression--do you know what I mean? I can imagine he's on the verge of anything--he might suddenly take to drink, or religion, or fall headlong into some love affair, or even kill himself.... Or, of course, he might--and probably will--just do nothing at all." Severn laughed. "Your explanation is even more bewildering than Terry himself." "I daresay it is. It's hard to put into a sentence something that could only be properly explained by giving you the whole history of the man's life." "All right. Give it to me. I've heaps of time to listen." "I'm afraid it would take too long.... Oughtn't we to be joining the ladies?" "Oh, never mind the ladies. For the moment they aren't half as interesting as Terry.... You said just now that the true explanation of him is in his life-history?" "I certainly think it is, but I didn't say I could give it you off-hand. As a matter of fact, a good deal of it's so complicated that I don't think I _could_ tell it--though I might manage to put it down on paper."