"Just so,--er--er--ahem,--Mr. Moore," said Mr. Gannon, gravely. "You know none; none knows you, so here is your poetry."
As he spoke, he drew a bundle of manuscript from his coat-tail pocket and tossed it contemptuously upon the table.
"Good day, sir, good day, er--er--ahem,--Mr. Moore."
And swelling out his chest with the importance properly attached to the person of the bearer of bad news, little Mr. Gannon sauntered leisurely out of the attic.
For a moment Moore sat motionless and dumb, striving to comprehend that the sudden downfall of his hopes was real. So quickly had he found himself robbed of the triumph which seemed almost in his grasp that the events of the last few moments were temporarily blurred and blotted in his mind as the fanciful weavings of a slumbering brain often are when consciousness is rudely restored to the sleeper and memory seeks to recall the dream.
"Done again," he murmured, softly. "Done again."
Suddenly a great sob shook his frame, but he manfully choked back the others which would have followed it.
"My courage is gone at last," he whispered, as though he were not alone. "I 'm beaten--I 'm beaten. Oh, it is bitter. All my bright hopes were conjured up but to fade. A glimpse of Paradise shown to me, and then this attic again. Ah, Bessie, Bessie, my heart is broken this day."
For a second he seemed as though about to break down completely, but, controlling himself with a great effort, he dashed the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Then as he turned, his eye fell upon the manuscript lying on the table where it had been thrown by the careless hand of Mr. Gannon.
"You are there, are you?" he cried, seizing it roughly. "You tempted me from beautiful Ireland--you lured me here to this heartless, cruel London, with a thousand sweet promises of hope and love and fame. You 've tricked me. You brought me here to starve--to die--to fail. Then, damn you, I 'm through with you forever."