physical improvement came a curious mental lassitude, a weariness of mind which made him content to lie and watch the housetops and the clouds, with never a desire to move nor to step back once more into life.  The old enthusiasms seemed chilled out of him.  They showed him his work in print, told him that he had stirred millions of his fellow-creatures as nothing of the sort had ever done before, that everywhere people were talking of him and his wonderful work.  He only smiled faintly and looked once more at the clouds.  They left paper and pens upon his table.  He looked at them without interest, and they remained untouched, Rawlinson himself called daily to inquire, and one day the doctor sent for him.

“Your protege is physically all right now,” he said.  “He is suffering simply from shock.  I should say that he had a fearful time struggling before he went down, and it will be a matter of time before he’s himself again.

“All right,” Rawlinson said.  “Do all you can for him.”

“I was going to suggest,” the doctor said, “that one of us puts it delicately to him that he’s a considerable expense to you.  It needs something like that to stir him up.  He could put on his hat and walk out of the place to-morrow if he liked.”

“Not for the world,” Rawlinson answered promptly.  “If he was costing us fifty guineas a week instead of ten, we should be perfectly satisfied.  Let him stay till he feels like moving.  Then we’ll send him to the sea, if he’ll go.”

The doctor laughed.

“You’re great people, Rawlinson,” he said.  “Not many philanthropists like you.”

“It’s not philanthropy,” the sub-editor answered.  “If you asked me to put into L. s. d. what those articles were worth to us, I couldn’t tell you.  But I can tell you this.  We’ve paid thousands down more than once, for an advertisement which wasn’t worth half so much as those few sheets of manuscript.  We’ve an endless purse, but there’s a short supply of what we want to buy—­originality.  If we come across it we don’t let it go easily, I can tell you.”

So Douglas was left undisturbed.  Then one morning he woke up to find his room a bower of roses, roses whose perfume and beauty took his breath away.  The nurse, who had tended a prince, said she had never seen anything like them before.  Douglas looked at them for a while fascinated, stooped down and bathed his face in the blossoms.  When he spoke there was a change.  One sense at least was revived in him—­his love for things beautiful.

“Where did they come from?” he asked.

The nurse smiled.

“A lady heft them yesterday,” she said.  “She drove up and stayed for some time with the doctor.  I believe that she is coming again to-day.”

Douglas made no remark.  Only the nurse smiled as she noticed him linger a little over his dressing, and look for the first time with interest at the clothes which had been sent in for him.  Towards midday he grew restless.  Early in the afternoon there was a soft tap at the door.