CHAPTER II.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 43, 25 October 1900, Page 23

CHAPTER 11.

Winter in London with all its gloomy accompaniments. Dark, foppry weather ; cold, damp, drizzling rain ; Bodden, washed-out looking trees. Seton street could certainly never have been a cheerful thoroughfare. Once upon a time, so long ago that nothing but a memory waa left, it was in the centre of London Society life ; but now, alas ! left high and dry by the receding waters of fashion. In a small sitting-room in one of the tumble-down houses, whose carved porticos showed their lordly origin, two persons were seated— Thibault Vernaker and his wife. But how came they here ? * Like many another, Vernaker had found that on entering the Catholic Church he had cast off, not only all tica of kin and friend.

■hip, but also his worldly success and prosperity. As the cleverest and moat earnest unbeliever in England, Vernaker had become one of Society's lions ; his books were greedily read, and himself looked upon m one of the greatest thinkers of the age. How strange are some of the impossible theories that the world at large holds. A man has only to declare himself an atheist, to state that he believps in no God, and b<s he the greatest of fools, he will by popular verdict be put down as a genius, and hailed as one whose tremendous intellect forbids him to hold the same commonplaoe ideas as the ordinary run of mankind. If, therefore, anyone who certainly may claim to b* one of «»xcepKon»l brain alio is an unbeliever, no wonder he is held up for popular admiration. So had it been with Vernaker — but now all wa« ehangrd, ' What ! Vernaker turned Catholic ? Dear me, what a very commonplace ending to such a promising carreer,' and other expressions of a similar character were heard on all sides. If he could reduce himself to the level of ordinary persons, and believe in a religion, he must be a man of very much less intellect than had popularly been supposed. And so Society shuddered gracefully, and dismissed the uninteresting creature from its memory, and poor Vernaker was gradually forgotten. He tried to write books in confutation of those he had previously written, but the publishers politely refused them. 'That sort of thing didn't take with the public,' they said, but if he liked to write them one of his old sort they would guarantee a good sale, and make him as popular as of yore. At first, one and all. the publishers eagerly tried to purchase his much heralded book, ' The Uncreated Universe,' and offered him anything he liked to name for it, but his answer that it was absolutely and entirely destroyed at last cooled their ardor. Amongst other misfortunes, too, he had lost the greater part of hie private income in a bank failure, thus further reducing his circumstances. So it came to pass that we find him and his wife located in humble lodgings, in a doubtful »treet, in a gloomy part of London. ♦ There,' cried Vernaker with a sigh of relief, as he threw aside a page of manuscript and rose frem his seat. •At last it iB ended !' and he stooped over the chair where his wife sat sewing and administered a fond kiss. ' Really finished is it, darling V nke cried joyously. ' Oh. lam bo glad ; you have been working much too hard lately, and I havo dreaded lest you should make yourself ill.' ' No,' he said wearily, ' I feel all right, only very tired,' and he threw himself back into his chair. ' I wonder,' he continued after a pause, ' what I should have eaid a year ago if anyone had suggested my writing a novel ; I fear I should have thought it beneath my dignity ; but there — "needs must, when the devil drives," and a living has to be earned somehow.' ' I think the book is sure to make you a name in the world of fiotion,' said his wife, looking at him admiringly ; for to her he was as a god amongst men. Her husband caught the glance and smiled back at her fondly. 'Poor little Connie,' he said, patting her cheek, 'I hope the critical publishers will be aa lenient as you are, but the probability is that the book will be refused. But now, I think I have earned a smoke by my industry, and with your permission I'll indulge in that solatium of human woe, the humble pipe.' He rose as he spoke, but seemed to stagger. He put hia hand to his brow as if in pain. In an instant his wife was beside him. ' What is it, darling V she cried piteously. wild anxiety in her eyes. He steadied himßelf with the chair. ' Nothing, nothing,' he murmured feebly, • a little bit dir/y— nothing much.' She made him sit down and drink a glass of wine — the last they possessed. 4 1 think I'll send that manuscript off to the publishers and then go to bed,' he said weakly. With trembling hands he wrote the letter and fastened up the packet, his wife watching him anxiously all the time. An hour later he was in bed, and next morning when the doctor was called in he announced Thibault Vernaker to be suffering from a severe attack of brain fever.