Ah, was there? This, as the new year broke its bonds, displaced all other thoughts, became Mr. Wriford's sole obsession. Was there something in life that he had missed? He was able now to take exercise daily in the Infirmary grounds. He would go on these occasions to its furthest recesses. His desire was to escape the other inmates of the convalescent ward; to be alone; to get away where in solitude he could pursue the question that ceaselessly he revolved: Was there some secret of happiness that he had missed? He brought, he could bring, no train of sequent reasoning to its investigation. He merely brooded upon it. He merely reviewed life as he had known it, saw how it had crumbled at every step, and how it crumbled anew at every re-examination of it, and wondered vaguely was there some quality might have been brought into it to cement it into a stable bridge that would have borne him cheerily upraised upon it, something that might yet be found--something that he had missed? And often, as his review carried him searching along the period of Mr. Puddlebox, wondered vaguely whether the final question of that sacrifice was related to this final question of himself. Had Mr. Puddlebox some quality unknown to him? Was there something in life that he himself had missed? Were the two questions one question? Was there one answer that should supply both answers? IV Daily, walking in the grounds or watching from the windows, he watched the new year struggling from her bonds. He came to greet her in all her different moods as a sentient creature--to envisage her as one in like situation to his own. She was struggling for freedom--nay, not for freedom, but for her own possession. The old year had her. In winter's guise he held her. Sometimes she escaped him, sometimes she was laughing all about and everywhere, a young thing, a wild thing, a timid thing. For three days together she would so reign, smiling, fluttering, free. Then winter snatched her back, overlaid her, jealously crushed her in his iron bonds. Sometimes she wept. Sometimes here and there she ran and laid her pretty trinkets on branch and bough and hedge. Winter would out and catch her, drag her away, despoil all her little traces. Sometimes she fought him. Sometimes as she smiled, as she danced, as she bedecked herself, winter would come shouting, blustering, threatening. A bonny sight to see her hold her own! Bolder she grew, weaker he. He had his moments. She sulked, she cried, she pouted, then laughingly she tricked him. Here he would catch her. Look, there she was away! Here tear up her handiwork: look, there her fingers ran! His legions sank exhausted: she laughed and called her own. Warmly, timidly, fragrantly her breezes moved about her; greenly, freshly, radiantly she smiled to their caress. They piped, she danced. She was out, she was free. She was high upon the hillside, she was deep within the valley, she was painting in the