What a thing was this impotence! Like a brown shrivel in place of a nut-kernel it was rottenness but not dissolution. To live day after day through interminable time and see the spread of the black mould, to long for that last mercy of the mould! Life, the pricking life of kisses, the ecstasy of the first-born, the content of ripening, can become leprous, a thing to escape from at any cost. Damnation? Ay, a threat, the threat of ignorance. No hell that any future life may hold can equal what we know and, if the gate be open... Isolda Rosevear had said, "I saved the cocoa, ’tis out there still," and, in the chambers of the man’s distraught mind, the words echoed helpfully. "Sabina left the cocoa a-purpose," he said and saw the way clear. "She left it——" For him too, as for all living creatures was hope, the hope of deliverance. In sudden haste, he turned and went out. Delay had been his curse but the need he was about to satisfy was so imperative that he did not stay even to complete his sentence. On the linhay shelf, apart from other cloam, stood the brown high-girdled jug. Though the place was in darkness Byron’s hand went out to it as unerringly as when he sought the blue phial in the wall cupboard: and, as he lifted it down, he heard with an eager thankfulness the sound of liquid swishing against the earthenware. Sabina, knowing how much he could stand, had made ready for him a way of escape. "She left it for me," he said and, with a sob of relief, lifted the brown jug to his lips. PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS, WEST NORWOOD, LONDON * * * * * * * * _*NEW NOVELS*_ THAT WHICH HATH WINGS. _By Richard Dehan._ FIRST THE BLADE. _By Clemence Dane._ THE WAR-WORKERS. _By E. M. Delafield._ BEYOND. _By John Galsworthy._ MISTRESS OF MEN. _By Flora Annie Steele._ UNDER THE HERMES. _By Richard Dehan._ THE NURSERY. _By Eden Phillpotts._ SECRET BREAD. _By F. Tennyson Jesse._ THE HAPPY GARRET. _By V. Goldie._ MICHAIL; OR, THE HEART OF A RUSSIAN. _By a Russian Lady._ A MUMMER’S WIFE. _By George Moore._ THE CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN. _By George Moore._ DRIFTING (WITH BROWNE). _By Byers Fletcher._ Illustrated, 6s. net. LEWIS SEYMOUR AND SOME WOMEN. _By George Moore._ WOMAN GUIDES. _By W. Shaw Heath._ THE GAMBLER. _By Fyodor Dostoevsky._ THE FORTUNES OF RICHARD MAHONY. _By H. H. Richardson._ LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.2