It seemed but yesterday that Henry read in the _Weekly Review_ a paragraph about the identity of Adrian Grant, and now--this! The stabs of Fate come fast and ruthless to the young man, to rid him of youth's illusion of immortality. He sees men rise up suddenly into fame, and dreams that one day he shall do so too. Then a brief year or two glides by, and the hearse draws up at the door of Fame's latest favourite, and youth begins to understand that the bright game of life must now be played with a blinking eye on the end of all things mortal. If he also understands that the end is in truth the beginning, that "the best is yet to be," then he may be happy no less. If not, he is booked for cynicism and things unlovely. Adrian Grant dead! Fame, fortune his, and but half-way through life. Dead, and "mysteriously." Henry sat dumb, struck thoughtless with amazement. "'Ow d'you like them 'olly'ocks, 'Enry; ain't they tremenjous?" The voice of his father recalled him, and the good human ring of it was sweet in his ears. "Father, a terrible thing has happened. My friend Mr. Grant is dead." Edward John pursed his mouth to whistle in token of blank surprise, but the scared look on Henry's face stayed him in the act, and he said "Well, well!" instead. "'Ow did it happen? Run over?" An accident was about the only means of death to people under seventy that was known in Hampton, if we except consumption. "Listen to this, father; it's dreadful!" And Henry re-read the paragraph, turning also to the news columns, where the information was supplemented by the statement of a servant to the effect that the novelist had been heard playing his 'cello late in the night, and had stopped suddenly in the middle of a bar. "Well, well," said Edward John, "that beats all! Poor fellow, and me went up to Brum to get some things all on account of 'im." CHAPTER XXIV ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER SUNDAY morning came sweet with the soft breath of golden autumn, and Henry awoke with the breeze whispering through his open window, "Adrian Grant is dead." For a moment it seemed that nothing else mattered, and in a moment more the need to wash and dress dispelled that gloomy thought. "Poor Grant!" said Henry to himself, as he soused his face at the wash-stand. "Poor Grant! I wonder what he thinks of life and death to-day?" All the cynical utterances of the dead man crowded back on the memory of the living. His contempt of the spiritual life, his jaundiced views of humanity. It was terrible to think of a gifted man dying with such cold thoughts in his mind. The mysterious nature of the death also troubled Henry, and his knowledge of the man led him to suspect the use of some drug.