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"PRAYER! There was another thought How could I pray? For I was a sceptic My father had educated me with broadly materialistic views; he himself was a follower of Voltaire, and with his finite rod he took the reatly to his own satisfaction He was a good man, too, and he died with exe nothing in his composition but dust, to which he was as bound to return He had not a shred of belief in anything but what he called the Universal Law of Necessity; perhaps this hy all his pictures lacked inspiration I accepted his theories without thinking ed to live respectably without any religious belief But NOW-- noith the horrible phanto before ed to PRAY Yet to whom? To what? To the Universal Law of Necessity? In that there could be no hearing or answering of human petitions I meditated on this with a kind of sombre ferocity Who portioned out this Law of Necessity? What brutal Code compels us to be born, to live, to suffer, and to die without recompense or reason? Why should this Universe be an ever- circling Wheel of Torture? Then a fresh impetus came to me I rose from my recumbent posture and stood erect; I trembled no more A curious sensation of defiant ahed aloud Such a laugh, too! I recoiled froh of--a ht no rim Law of Necessity to its letter If Necessity caused my birth, it also deainst ness than madness Slowly and deliberately I took froer of thin sharp steel--one that I always carried with me as a means of self-defence --I drew it fro coldly in the pallid moon-rays

I kissed it joyously; it was ers--another instant and it would have been buried deep in rasp on ger fro thus foiled in ered back a few paces and sullenly stared at my rescuer He was a tall man, clad in a dark overcoat bordered with fur; he looked like a wealthy English for pleasure His features were fine and coentle disdain as he coolly aze When he spoke his voice was rich and rave scorn