Now Alice is taken sick--mortally sick. Lingers a long while, wants Mr. Wriford badly to sit with her and wants him always, is only upset by her mother. Young Wriford would have nursed her and wept for her. Mr. Wriford nurses her very devotedly, as she says, but in long hours grudged from his work, as he knows. And has no tears. What, are even tears buried with Young Wriford? Mr. Wriford believes they are and hates himself anew and thousandfold that he has no sympathy, and often in remorse rushes home from the nightly fight with the _Intelligence_ to go to Alice's bedside and make amends--not for active neglects, for there have been none--but for the secret dryness of his heart while he is with her and his thoughts are with his work. These are stirrings of Young Wriford, but of what avail stirrings within the tomb? Alice dies. Here is Mr. Wriford by her death caught anew and caught worse in the meshes that entangle him. Remorse oppresses him at every thought of neglect of her and unkindness to her through these years. It can only be assuaged by new devotion to her boys and to her parents, much changed and stricken by her loss. He might leave this household now. He feels it is his duty to remain in it. They want him. The thing goes on--swifter, fiercer, dizzier, and more dizzily yet. No one notices it. He's young, that's all they notice, not yet thirty, very youthful in the face, one of the lucky ones: that's all they notice. It goes on. He hides it, has to hide it. Can't bear that any of its baser manifestations--nerves, nervousness, shrinking--should be noticed. This is the stage of shunning people--of avoiding people's eyes that look, not at him, but into him and laugh at him. It goes on. He surprises himself by the work he does--always believes that this which has brought him merit, that which has named him one of the lucky ones anew, never can be equalled again; yet somehow is equalled; yet ever, as looking back he believes, at cost of greater effort, with touch less sure. This is the stage of beginning to expect that one day there will be an end, an explosion, all the fabric of his life and his success cant on its rotten foundations and come crashing. Now the years run. The _Intelligence_ people conceive _The Week Reviewed_: Mr. Wriford forms it, executes it, launches it, carries it to success, and the more energy he devotes to it the less has to resist the crumbling of his foundations. One of the lucky ones--one that has reached the stage of conscious effort to perform a task, drives himself through it, finishes it trembling, and only wants to get away from everybody to hide how he trembles, and only wants to get to bed where it is dark and quiet, and only lies there turning from tangle to tangle of his preoccupations, counting the hours that refuse him sleep, crying to himself as he has been heard to cry: "Oh, I say, I say, I say! This can't go on! This must end! This must end!"