The rain had ceased, but the wind blew in squalls, roughening the surface of the river and making the red and green lights of the omnibus boats sway in the darkness.

The passers-by came and went, and more than one examined him from the corner of the eye, wondering what this tall man was doing there, and if he intended to throw himself into the water.
And why not?
What better could he do?
And this was what Saniel said to himself while watching the flowing water.

One plunge, and he would end the fierce battle in which he had so madly engaged for four years, and which would in the end drive him mad.
It was not the first time that this idea of ending everything had tempted him, and he only warded it off by constantly inventing combinations which it seemed to him at the moment might save him.

Why yield to such a temptation before trying everything?
And this was how he happened to appeal to Glady.

But he knew him, and knew that his avarice, about which every one joked, had a certain reason for its existence.
However, he said to himself that if the landed proprietor obstinately refused a friendly loan, which would only pay the debts of youth, the poet would willingly fill the role of Providence and save from shipwreck, without risking anything, a man with a future, who, later, would pay him back.