AND SUDDENLY THE LAST Had anyone told Theophil that in another six months he too would be a memory, and that the future to which he looked, now with a sense of new worlds to be conquered, now with a sense of weariness, was suddenly to close down on him like a dropped curtain, he would have smiled half sadly, and half proudly.

No such good fortune for his sad heart! no such miscarriage of his young life! Young life is so sure of its long lease.

All about it lie the broken dreams, the unfinished projects of others; but that _its_ life-work should suddenly suffer the final interruption is not to be thought of! It will die if it please of its own choosing; it will despise life and coquette with death; but to die unconsulted, with not so much as "Will it please your honour to die to-morrow week ?" is an indignity inconceivable to youth, however visionary and devoted to the worship of the dead.
Yet for quite simple reasons, as this mysterious world goes, it had been decided that Theophil was for as brief a while as possible, allowing for the leisure of natural causes, to support the life he thought he hated.
Even while Jenny lived, fate, mercifully foreseeing, had willed him a brief pilgrimage; for on that night when Jenny had leaned over him with that terrible hunger of damp breath, it had been written that of that kiss Theophil should some day die.
And it was of that kiss that the following May Theophil, all his plans laid aside, engagements cancelled on every hand, eager life suddenly trapped in this choking cul-de-sac, was dying.
Death! It was an outrage! He was young, he was powerful! He would not die! There was May at the window.

He too was full of May.

He would get up and go about his work.