Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/72

Rh I felt a profound pity for him, and he felt a contemptuous pity for me. But one night my pity almost changed to love, and after this particular conversation, in the course of which he made me deep confidences of his early privations in order that he might study for his profession, and of his unquenchable desire for knowledge for its own sake, I felt so tenderly towards him, that I never tried to argue again, but only urged him to believe in a soul and in a future life. For he told me that he was already so far gone in consumption that at most he had but a year or two to live, and he knew that in the time at his disposal he could not accomplish the very smallest part of his great dream. I then understood why his eyes were so burning bright and why he had always glowing red spots in his cheeks, and looked so terribly thin and emaciated.

The hours spent with him did not refresh or invigorate me as the woods and music did; I re-entered the swing doors of my prison--as I came to regard the Hub--with no new stimulus. His example impressed me, but his atmosphere and outlook both depressed. Only my admiration for his courage, strong will, and consistent attitude remained, while I drank "tea" with my unpleasant customers, or listened to complaints from the staff. Before the swing-doors closed for the last time, however, the thin, keen-faced doctor with the hectic flush and the bright burning eyes had succumbed to his terrible malady. His end made a great impression on me. For several months he went about like a living skeleton. His cough was ghastly. He had less and less money, and I seemed to be the only friend he turned to, or indeed possessed at all, for I was the only person he allowed to help him, and the little help I could give was barely enough to prevent the landlady turning him out for rent and board unpaid.

To the last his will burned in him like a flame. He talked and studied, and dreamed his long dream of scientific achievement even when he knew his time was measured by weeks, and he was utterly scornful of death and a Deity that could devise such a poor scheme of existence, so full of failure, pain, and abortive effort. But I was full of Rh