of her for whom he had bartered away his life—­the incarnation of passive and entwining love, that gentle creature, who had given herself to him so utterly, for whom love, and the flowers, and trees, and birds, music, the sky, and the quick-flowing streams, were all-sufficing; and who, like the goddess in the picture, seemed wondering at her own existence.  He had a sudden glimpse of understanding, strange indeed in one who had so little power of seeing into others’ hearts:  Ought she ever to have been born into a world like this?  But the flash of insight yielded quickly to that sickening consciousness of his own position, which never left him now.  Whatever else he did, he must get rid of that malaise!  But what could he do in that coming life?  Write books?  What sort of books could he write?  Only such as expressed his views of citizenship, his political and social beliefs.  As well remain sitting and speaking beneath those towers!  He could never join the happy band of artists, those soft and indeterminate spirits, for whom barriers had no meaning, content-to understand, interpret, and create.  What should he be doing in that galley?  The thought was inconceivable.  A career at the Bar—­yes, he might take that up; but to what end?  To become a judge!  As well continue to sit beneath those towers!  Too late for diplomacy.  Too late for the Army; besides, he had not the faintest taste for military glory.  Bury himself in the country like Uncle Dennis, and administer one of his father’s estates?  It would be death.  Go amongst the poor?  For a moment he thought he had found a new vocation.  But in what capacity—­to order their lives, when he himself could not order his own; or, as a mere conduit pipe for money, when he believed that charity was rotting the nation to its core?  At the head of every avenue stood an angel or devil with drawn sword.  And then there came to him another thought.  Since he was being cast forth from Church and State, could he not play the fallen spirit like a man—­be Lucifer, and destroy!  And instinctively he at once saw himself returning to those towers, and beneath them crossing the floor; joining the revolutionaries, the Radicals, the freethinkers, scourging his present Party, the party of authority and institutions.  The idea struck him as supremely comic, and he laughed out loud in the street....

The Club which Lord Dennis frequented was in St. James’s untouched by the tides of the waters of fashion—­steadily swinging to its moorings in a quiet backwater, and Miltoun found his uncle in the library.  He was reading a volume of Burton’s travels, and drinking tea.

“Nobody comes here,” he said, “so, in spite of that word on the door, we shall talk.  Waiter, bring some more tea, please.”

Impatiently, but with a sort of pity, Miltoun watched Lord Dennis’s urbane movements, wherein old age was, pathetically, trying to make each little thing seem important, if only to the doer.  Nothing his great-uncle could say would outweigh the warning of his picturesque old figure!  To be a bystander; to see it all go past you; to let your sword rust in its sheath, as this poor old fellow had done!  The notion of explaining what he had come about was particularly hateful to Miltoun; but since he had given his word, he nerved himself with secret anger, and began: