down, as Miss Erme would have said, I was uneasy, I was expectant.
At the core of my disconcerted state - for my wonted curiosity

lived in its ashes - was the sharpness of a sense that Corvick
would at last probably come out somewhere. He made, in defence of

his credulity, a great point of the fact that from of old, in his
study of this genius, he had caught whiffs and hints of he didn't

know what, faint wandering notes of a hidden music. That was just
the rarity, that was the charm: it fitted so perfectly into what I

reported.
If I returned on several occasions to the little house in Chelsea I

dare say it was as much for news of Vereker as for news of Miss
Erme's ailing parent. The hours spent there by Corvick were

present to my fancy as those of a chessplayer bent with a silent
scowl, all the lamplit winter, over his board and his moves. As my

imagination filled it out the picture held me fast. On the other
side of the table was a ghostlier form, the faint figure of an

antagonist good-humouredly but a little wearily secure - an
antagonist who leaned back in his chair with his hands in his

pockets and a smile on his fine clear face. Close to Corvick,
behind him, was a girl who had begun to strike me as pale and

wasted and even, on more familiar view, as rather handsome, and who
rested on his shoulder and hung on his moves. He would take up a

chessman and hold it poised a while over one of the little squares,
and then would put it back in its place with a long sigh of

disappointment. The young lady, at this, would slightly but
uneasily shift her position and look across, very hard, very long,

very strangely, at their dim participant. I had asked them at an
early stage of the business if it mightn't contribute to their

success to have some closer communication with him. The special
circumstances would surely be held to have given me a right to

introduce them. Corvick immediately replied that he had no wish to
approach the altar before he had prepared the sacrifice. He quite

agreed with our friend both as to the delight and as to the honour
of the chase - he would bring down the animal with his own rifle.

When I asked him if Miss Erme were as keen a shot he said after
thinking: "No, I'm ashamed to say she wants to set a trap. She'd

give anything to see him; she says she requires another tip. She's
really quite morbid about it. But she must play fair - she SHAN'T

see him!" he emphatically" target="_blank" title="ad.强调地；断然地">emphatically added. I wondered if they hadn't even
quarrelled a little on the subject - a suspicion not corrected by

the way he more than once exclaimed to me: "She's quite incredibly
literary, you know - quite fantastically!" I remember his saying

of her that she felt in italics and thought in capitals. "Oh when
I've run him to earth," he also said, "then, you know, I shall

knock at his door. Rather - I beg you to believe. I'll have it
from his own lips: 'Right you are, my boy; you've done it this

time!' He shall crown me victor - with the critical laurel."
Meanwhile he really avoided the chances London life might have

given him of meeting the distinguishednovelist; a danger, however,
that disappeared with Vereker's leaving England for an indefinite

absence, as the newspapers announced - going to the south for
motives connected with the health of his wife, which had long kept

her in retirement. A year - more than a year - had elapsed since
the incident at Bridges, but I had had no further sight of him. I

think I was at bottom rather ashamed - I hated to remind him that,
though I had irremediably missed his point, a reputation for

acuteness was rapidly overtaking me. This scruple led me a dance;
kept me out of Lady Jane's house, made me even decline, when in

spite of my bad manners she was a second time so good as to make me
a sign, an invitation to her beautiful seat. I once became aware

of her under Vereker's escort at a concert, and was sure I was seen
by them, but I slipped out without being caught. I felt, as on

that occasion I splashed along in the rain, that I couldn't have
done anything else; and yet I remember saying to myself that it was

hard, was even cruel. Not only had I lost the books, but I had
lost the man himself: they and their author had been alike spoiled

for me. I knew too which was the loss I most regretted. I had
taken to the man still more than I had ever taken to the books.

CHAPTER VI.
SIX months after our friend had left England George Corvick, who

made his living by his pen, contracted for a piece of work which
imposed on him an absence of some length and a journey of some

difficulty, and his undertaking of which was much of a surprise to
me. His brother-in-law had become editor of a great provincial

paper, and the great provincial paper, in a fine flight of fancy,
had conceived the idea of sending a "special commissioner" to

India. Special commissioners had begun, in the "metropolitan
press," to be the fashion, and the journal in question must have

felt it had passed too long for a mere country cousin. Corvick had
no hand, I knew, for the big brush of the correspondent, but that

was his brother-in-law's affair, and the fact that a particular
task was not in his line was apt to be with himself exactly a

reason for accepting it. He was prepared to out-Herod the
metropolitan press; he took solemn precautions against

priggishness, he exquisitely outraged taste. Nobody ever knew it -
that offended principle was all his own. In addition to his

expenses he was to be conveniently paid, and I found myself able to
help him, for the usual fat book, to a plausible arrangement with

the usual fat publisher. I naturally inferred that his obvious
desire to make a little money was not unconnected with the prospect

of a union with Gwendolen Erme. I was aware that her mother's
opposition was largely addressed to his want of means and of

lucrative abilities, but it so happened that, on my saying the last
time I saw him something that bore on the question of his

separation from our young lady, he brought out with an emphasis
that startled me: "Ah I'm not a bit engaged to her, you know!"

"Not overtly," I answered, "because her mother doesn't like you.
But I've always taken for granted a private understanding."

"Well, there WAS one. But there isn't now." That was all he said
save something about Mrs. Erme's having got on her feet again in

the most extraordinary way - a remark pointing, as I supposed, the
moral that private understandings were of little use when the

doctor didn't share them. What I took the liberty of more closely
inferring was that the girl might in some way have estranged him.

Well, if he had taken the turn of jealousy for instance it could
scarcely be jealousy of me. In that case - over and above the

absurdity of it - he wouldn't have gone away just to leave us
together. For some time before his going we had indulged in no

allusion to the buried treasure, and from his silence, which my
reserve simply emulated, I had drawn a sharp conclusion. His

courage had dropped, his ardour had gone the way of mine - this
appearance at least he left me to scan. More than that he couldn't

do; he couldn't face the triumph with which I might have greeted an
explicit admission. He needn't have been afraid, poor dear, for I

had by this time lost all need to triumph. In fact I considered I
showed magnanimity in not reproaching him with his collapse, for

the sense of his having thrown up the game made me feel more than
ever how much I at last depended on him. If Corvick had broken

down I should never know; no one would be of any use if HE wasn't.
It wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge; little by

little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had
become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are

doubtless people to whom torments of such an order appear hardly
more natural than the contortions of disease; but I don't after all

know why I should in this connexion so much as mention them. For
the few persons, at any rate, abnormal or not, with whom my

anecdote is concerned, literature was a game of skill, and skill
meant courage, and courage meant honour, and honour meant passion,

meant life. The stake on the table was of a special substance and