“Yes. That was one reason why I began to write _Hard Sayings_. But if you will let me offer you another leaf from my experience, I will suggest that there are many chances for reprieve and even pardon after the readers have condemned your novel. I once had a novel accepted--the only novel I ever had accepted--after all the publisher’s readers had pronounced against it.” “Had you?” Ray came tremulously back at him. “Yes,” sighed Kane. “That is why Chapley is so fond of me; he has forgiven me a deadly injury.” He paused to let his words carry Ray down again, and then he asked, with a nod toward the bed where the young fellow had flung his manuscript and the readers’ opinions, “Might I?” “Oh, certainly,” said Ray from his depths; and Kane took up the opinions and began to run them over. “Yes, they have a strangely familiar effect; they are like echoes from my own past.” He laid them down again. “Do you think they are right?” “Yes. Perfectly! That is”-- “Oh! _That is._ There is hope, I see.” “How, hope?” Ray retorted. “Does my differing with them make any difference as to the outcome?” “For the book, no, perhaps; for you, yes, decidedly. It makes all the difference between being stunned and being killed. It is not pleasant to be stunned, but it is not for such a long time as being killed. What is your story about?” It astonished Ray himself to find how much this question revived his faith and courage. His undying interest in the thing, by and for itself, as indestructible as a mother’s love, revived, and he gave Kane the outline of his novel. Then he filled this in, and he did not stop till he had read some of the best passages. He suddenly tossed his manuscript from him. “What a fool I am!” Kane gave his soft, thick laugh, shutting his eyes, and showing his small white teeth, still beautifully sound. “Oh, no! Oh, no! I have read worse things than that! I have written worse than that. Come, come! Here is nothing to beat the breast for. I doubt if Chapley’s will take it, in defiance of their readers; their experience with me has rendered that very improbable. But they are not the only publishers in New York, or Philadelphia even; I’m told they have very eager ones in Chicago. Why shouldn’t the _roman psychologique_, if that’s the next thing, as Mr. Brandreth believes, get on its legs at Chicago, and walk East?” “I wonder,” Ray said, rising aimlessly from his chair, “whether it would do to call on Mr. Brandreth to-day? This suspense--Do you know whether he is very religious?” “How should I know such a thing of my fellow-man in New York? I don’t know it even of myself. At times I am very religious, and at times, not. But Mr. Brandreth is rather a formal little man, and a business interview on Sunday, with an agonized author, might not seem exactly decorous to him.” “I got the impression he wasn’t very stiff. But it wouldn’t do,” said Ray, before Kane had rounded his neat period. “What an ass I am!”