I wish I could.' Rest had indeed become out of the question.

For two days he could not write, but the result upon his mind was far worse than if he had been at the desk.

He looked a haggard creature when he again sat down with the accustomed blank slip before him.
The second volume ought to have been much easier work than the first; it proved far harder.

Messieurs and mesdames the critics are wont to point out the weakness of second volumes; they are generally right, simply because a story which would have made a tolerable book (the common run of stories) refuses to fill three books.

Reardon's story was in itself weak, and this second volume had to consist almost entirely of laborious padding.