He was weary. He was weary of all things. Most, he was weary of good things--things one dreams of, things one spins out one’s life in fashioning. And now, with Clarice’s letter in his hand, these things threatened to be born--to be born again? Hope and love and life, they might really be, with him so weary? All of his years had been the travail of their first stirring, of their first impulse for the sun. He must begin afresh? He must mother them again? The answer to that seared his soul. What he must do was to escape--escape the fire and the ineffable anguish of just these things. How? His hands were cool as was that he held within them--that which might be the way. He flung his mind beyond the act which stood there ready, beyond the flash and then the passing. His eyes and all the world within them would become as two blank, black spaces. He would be lifted beyond his eyes. But was he sure? Was this the way? Could he know that? How? * * * * * A dawn came to Quincy. Was this not another climax, another ecstasy to be shunned? What led him always and again to the steep scaling of some height, to the bitter plunge of some depth? This was not the way. This was merely a last variant of the old painful yearning. The weapon in his hand blandished him also to a pinnacle that was sharp and throbbing, imperious and mighty. How then, if not this way? Quincy stood in his room and his weighted hand dropped to his side and the pistol within his hand thudded upon the floor. What a fearful temptation it had been, like all the others, beckoning and dancing. Travail and ecstasy--could he not escape them? And if the letter of Clarice and _this_--the height and the depth--were one, with a hair holding them apart in chaos, was there no middle space, unmovemented, between? Quincy’s head dropped a little, and his shoulders fell forward. And a tuft of black hair crowded his eyes that were half closed. So he remained. Did he feel? He tried to feel if he was feeling. Did he live? He tried to feel if he was living. And so standing, the simple way came, like a magic garment, and possessed him. A tendril of his consciousness, faint yet infinitely fine, went out to the world of people. All of a sudden, he knew that they were dead. He knew that they had long been dead. They ate and laughed and danced--the dead. They builded cities on the murmurous landsides and haunted the free waters of the sea--the dead. They had sonorous names for the rhythm of their rotting--the dead. He--had been alive. He had not been one of them. He had suffered. He had been unwelcome. But now? What was the easeful languor through him? the warmth that swathed him, the fellowship that buoyed him? He no longer suffered. He was one of them. He was dead also! He had found the way!