As a Man Lives by E. Phillips Oppenheim — Read

THERE are days marked in our lives with white stones. We can never forget them. Recollections, a very easy effort of memory, seem to bring back even in some measure the very thrill, the same pulsations and emotions, as were kindled into life by certain never-to-be-forgotten happenings. Time cannot weaken them. Whilst we have life the memory of them is eternal. And there are other days against the memory of which we have dropped a black stone. We shrink from anything which may recall them. No sacrifice would seem too great if only we could set the seal of oblivion upon those few hated hours. We school ourselves to close our eyes, and turn our heads away from anything which might in any manner recall them to us. Yet we are powerless. Ghosts of them steal light-footed, detested and uninvited guests, across our fairest moments; the chill of winter shakes us on the most brilliant of midsummer days; the colour steals from our cheeks, and our blood runs to water. We are at the mercy of those touches of icy reminiscence. There is no escape from them. There never will be any escape. The Sunday which followed my father's visit to London is one of those hideous memories. In the calendar of my life it is marked with the blackest of black stones. I only pray that such another day as that may never find its way into my life.

The morning passed much as usual. My father had scarcely spoken to us on the previous evening. In reply to our half eager, half frightened questions, he admitted that he had been ill. He would not hear of a doctor. His malady, he told us, was one which he himself perfectly understood. He would be better in a few days. He ate and drank sparingly, and then retired at once to his room. We heard him drag himself wearily up the stairs, And Alice burst into tears, and I myself felt a lump in my throat. Yet what could we do? He would not have us near him. The only invalid's privilege which he permitted himself was a fire in his bedroom, and this he asked for immediately he entered the house, although the night was close and oppressive, and he had come in with beads of perspiration standing out upon his white forehead.