He had indeed found the end of the rainbow, but what did it amount to?  He was dissatisfied—­not with what life was giving him, but with what he was doing with his life.  At the moment when his cup was fairly overflowing with happiness and he should have been strongest, he had suffered himself to be led away by the Imp of the Perverse, and had spoiled all.  Nothing he had ever been made to taste he told himself, was so unbearably bitter as this dissatisfaction—­this disgust with self.

* * * * *

Yet when again the tiny crimson stream stained the sweet lips of his Virginia, and again the Angel of Death spread a dread wing for a season over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, all his knowledge of the bitterness—­the loathing—­of remorse was not sufficient to make him strong for the struggle with grief and despair.

Again the reason of Edgar Poe gave way before the strain, and again he fell.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr. Graham seated at Edgar Poe’s desk in the office of Graham’s Magazine.  The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and quickly glanced over his shoulder.  The look of inquiry in his blue eyes instantly kindled into one of welcome.

“Come in!  Come in!  Dr. Griswold,” he exclaimed.  “I am more than glad to see you!  We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we’ll induce you to lend a hand.”

The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. Graham’s might have suggested a touch of the obsequious.  His furtive but watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe’s desk—­not his own—­that Mr. Graham sat—­which was as he had anticipated.

“Mr. Poe laid up again?” he queried.

“Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time.”

The visitor sadly shook his head.  “Ah?—­poor fellow, poor fellow!”

“Do you think his condition serious?” asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety.

Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham.

“Didn’t you know?” he questioned, in a lowered tone.

“Only that the failure of his wife’s health has been a sad blow to him and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down.  Is there anything more?”

Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower key.

“Whiskey”—­he whispered.

Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up.

“Ah—­ah” he exclaimed.  Then fell silent and serious.

“Did you never suspect it?” asked his companion.