CHAPTER X.
"And now we believe in evil
Where once we believed in good.
The world, the flesh, and the devil
Are easily understood."
Gordon.
IT seems a pity that our human destinies are too often so constituted that with our own hands we may annul in one hour—our hour of weakness—the long, slow work of our strength; annul the self-conquest and the renunciation of our best years. We ought to be thankful when the gate of the irrevocable closes behind us, and the power to defeat ourselves is at last taken from us. For he who has once solemnly and with conviction renounced, and then, for no new cause, has taken to himself again that which he renounced, has broken the mainspring of his life.
John went early the following morning to London, for he had business with three men, and he could not rest till he had seen them, and had shut that gate upon himself for ever.
So early had he started that it was barely midday when he reached Lord Frederick's chambers. The valet told him that his lordship was still in bed, and could see no one; but John went up to his bedroom, and knocked at the door.
"It is I—John Tempest," he said, and went in.
Lord Frederick was sitting up in bed, sallow and shrunk like a mummy, in a blue watered-silk dressing-gown. His thin hair was brushed up into a crest on the top of his head. The bed was littered with newspapers and letters. There was a tray before him, and he was in the act of chipping an egg as John came in.
He raised his eyebrows and looked first with surprised displeasure, and then with attention, at his visitor.