Page:Pain--Stories in the dark.djvu/37

THIS IS ALL neighbourhood; and Wyatt was a landlord. Wyatt heard with a wretchedly simulated cheerfulness on his sad-eyed, sallow face. What would it profit him though he gained the whole world?

Wyatt had been in his day the brightest and best of companions; but when a man's material heart within him has taken on autumnal tints the man's spirits droop also. Both, the doctor knew, were symptomatic.

And he who knew this, and had known the old Wyatt, was patient; but when he was being driven away from the great white house he became very sad.

That afternoon Wyatt sat crouching in a big easy-chair in his library, alone. It was a hot day, but he had a shawl wrapped round his feet: latterly his feet had been always cold, as though already they felt the chill of wet earth. There was a pile of books on the table 33