taste of death that he so nearly met with in Africa came to him at this hour of night, when all the elements were at war against man; and he came to the conclusion that he was not obliged to submit to life’s platitudes any longer. A gentleman should always quit a card table when he has been cheated. Life had cheated him, and he resolved to leave life. The other side of Acheron could not be a worse fraud than this; besides, he knew all about this world, there was nothing that could astonish him any more, nor keep his attention riveted for more than five minutes. Why not try the experiment? If it were complete oblivion, so much the better, he did not object to a long sleep out of which he would never wake. If it were, as so many declared, eternal punishment—well, the retribution could never, in all its black horror, be any worse than the gnawing heartache of the life in which we were chained. The brougham rolled on, and very soon Lord Somerville knew he was in the heart of London. The streets were flooded, passengers were rushing along, in vain trying to get into omnibuses or hansoms; shouting, whistling, rent the damp atmosphere, competing with claps of thunder which at times alarmed the inhabitants, especially when the electric lights suddenly went out and Londoners were plunged for a few minutes into utter darkness. Lord Somerville could not remember having ever witnessed such a thunderstorm in town; still, he welcomed its magnitude with joy, for it was the proper accompaniment to his frenzy against an inadequate state of Society. The wheels turned the corner of Piccadilly and Park Lane, not without risk, for the obscurity was dangerous, and in a few seconds the carriage halted before his stately mansion; he opened the door, jumped out, and went into the house without turning round to give orders for next day to his coachman. This seemed peculiar to the servant, as he knew my lord to be very methodical in all that concerned his household.