Robert Brook fell into a black mood and an utter weariness with his own life. For him season was to follow season and to find him still a guest at the parties and the entertainments until he became old and a bore. He envied Harry his expedition, Cynthia her sorrow. He went out wretched and walked by instinct down Whitehall. On his way to his club he passed the windows of the Board of Trade. These, too, were brilliantly lit; for within the building a Cabinet Minister was endeavoring to compose an acute struggle between artisans and their employers. Robert Brook watched those windows; and his disgust with his own life increased. Here again was achievement for others, not for himself. There would never be room for him within that building, nor within any other where the nation's administration was being done. And his life was going; indeed, the best part of it was done. He walked on to his own small house and let himself in with his key. The passage was dark and the house quite silent. He stood for a while alone in the darkness and the silence. He thought of Cynthia and Harry, of Devenish and his colleagues, of others without eminence, but, at all events, with wives and children. He had given up his life to the House of Commons and the House of Commons repaid him by barely knowing his name. There was probably no man in London more wretched that night than Robert Brook. The End