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The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr. Graham's might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe's desk—not his own—that Mr. Graham sat—which was as he had anticipated.

"Mr. Poe laid up again?" he queried.

"Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time."

The visitor sadly shook his head. "Ah?—poor fellow, poor fellow!"

"Do you think his condition serious?" asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety.

Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham.

"Didn't you know?" he questioned, in a lowered tone.

"Only that the failure of his wife's health has been a sad blow to him and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there anything more?"

Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower key.

"Whiskey"—he whispered.

Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up.

"Ah—ah" he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious.

"Did you never suspect it?" asked his companion.

"Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never saw any indications that they were true, and didn't believe them. How could I? Think of the work the man turns out—its quantity, its quality! He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has been my good fortune to meet—and withal the most perfect gentleman—exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor. Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or with greater assurance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, most painstaking work—to the last penny!"

Dr. Griswold's face took on a look of deep concern.

"The more's the pity—the more's the pity!" said he. "A good man gone wrong!" Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air.

"You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?"

Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold's visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal of "copy" for the next number of the magazine—furnished by Mr. Poe before his illness—there were one or two important reviews that must be written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he would.

As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe's desk a look that was almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary substitution was but a step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the magazine which under Poe's management had come to dominate thought in America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before. He could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the public to recognize him as a poet!

It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of Graham's Magazine found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the sunshine should lie so golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden—that birds should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite of the bitterness of his thoughts.

He was going to work again, and he was glad of it—but he made no resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong thereafter—that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable