It came to him of a sudden that he too must leave upon these walls the

memorial of his passage. He paused before a clean space, took the pencil

out, and pondered. Vanity, so hard to dislodge, awoke in him. We call it

vanity at least; perhaps unjustly. Rather it was the bare sense of his

existence prompted him; the sense of his life, the one thing wonderful,

to which he scarce clung with a finger. From his jarred nerves there

came a strong sentiment of coming change; whether good or ill he could

not say: change, he knew no more--change, with inscrutable veiled face,

approaching noiseless. With the feeling, came the vision of a concert

room, the rich hues of instruments, the silent audience, and the loud

voice of the symphony. 'Destiny knocking at the door,' he thought; drew

a stave on the plaster, and wrote in the famous phrase from the Fifth

Symphony. 'So,' thought he, 'they will know that I loved music and had

classical tastes. They? He, I suppose: the unknown, kindred spirit that

shall come some day and read my memor querela. Ha, he shall have Latin

too!' And he added: terque quaterque beati Queis ante ora patrum.

He turned again to his uneasy pacing, but now with an irrational and

supporting sense of duty done. He had dug his grave that morning; now he

had carved his epitaph; the folds of the toga were composed, why should

he delay the insignificant trifle that remained to do? He paused and

looked long in the face of the sleeping Huish, drinking disenchantment

and distaste of life. He nauseated himself with that vile countenance.

Could the thing continue? What bound him now? Had he no rights?--only

the obligation to go on, without discharge or furlough, bearing the

unbearable? Ich trage unertragliches, the quotation rose in his mind; he

The Ebb-Tide