Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void.

After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home.  It was stifling.  How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house?  He was even homesick for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat!

Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust and longing.  For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm’s chamber and the tender, dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of things were upon him—­the blue devils which he believed had been exorcised forever had him in their clutches.  Whither should he fly from their harrassments?  By what road should he escape?

At the answer—­the only answer vouchsafed him—­he stood aghast.

“No, no!” he cried within him, “Not that—­not that!” Seeking to deafen his ears to a voice that at once charmed and terrified him, for it was the voice of a demon which possessed the allurements of an angel—­a demon he reckoned he had long ago fast bound in chains from which it would never have the strength to arise.  It was the voice that dwelt in the cup—­the single cup—­so innocent seeming, so really innocent for many, yet so ruinous for him; for, with all its promises of cheer and comfort it led—­and he knew it—­to disaster.

Bitterly he fought to drown the sounds of the voice, but the more he deafened his ears the more insistent, the clearer, the more alluring its tones became.

And it followed him everywhere.  At every board where he was a guest the brimming cup stood beside his plate, at every turn of the street he was buttonholed by some friend old or new, with the invitation to join him in the “cup of kindness.”  At every evening party he found himself surrounded by bevies of charming young Hebes, who, as innocent as angels of any intention of doing him a wrong, implored him to propose them a toast.

How could he refuse them?  Especially when acquiescence meant escape from this horrible, horrible soul-sickness, this weight that was bearing his spirits down—­crushing them.

Therein lay the tempter’s power.  Not in appetite—­he was no swine to swill for love of the draught.  When he did yield he drained the cup scarce tasting its contents.  But ah, the freedom from the sickness that tortured him, the weight that oppressed him!  And ah, the exhilaration, physical and mental, the delightful exhilaration which put melancholy to flight, loosed his tongue and started the machinery of his brain—­which robbed the past of regret and made the present and the future rosy!