“Can’t do?” He opened his eyes. “Haven’t I done it in twenty volumes? I do it in my way,” he continued. “Go _you_ and don’t do it in yours.” “Ours is so devilish difficult,” I weakly observed. “So’s mine. We each choose our own. There’s no compulsion. You won’t come down and smoke?” “No. I want to think this thing out.” “You’ll tell me then in the morning that you’ve laid me bare?” “I’ll see what I can do; I’ll sleep on it. But just one word more,” I added. We had left the room—I walked again with him a few steps along the passage. “This extraordinary ‘general intention,’ as you call it—for that’s the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it—is then, generally, a sort of buried treasure?” His face lighted. “Yes, call it that, though it’s perhaps not for me to do so.” “Nonsense!” I laughed. “You know you’re hugely proud of it.” “Well, I didn’t propose to tell you so; but it _is_ the joy of my soul!” “You mean it’s a beauty so rare, so great?” He waited a little again. “The loveliest thing in the world!” We had stopped, and on these words he left me; but at the end of the corridor, while I looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake his head and wave his finger “Give it up—give it up!” This wasn’t a challenge—it was fatherly advice. If I had had one of his books at hand I’d have repeated my recent act of faith—I’d have spent half the night with him. At three o’clock in the morning, not sleeping, remembering moreover how indispensable he was to Lady Jane, I stole down to the library with a candle. There wasn’t, so far as I could discover, a line of his writing in the house. CHAPTER IV.