with me in those days, yet as I thought of William Morris lying ill somewhere within that house, a flood of supplication that he might not be in pain, and might get well again, filled my heart. I looked at the library window, and could just catch a glance of the book-shelves. How sacred that room was! What priceless treasures were there! What wonderful memories were enshrined in it of him and of his superb comradeship! I looked out on the river and recalled his description of the scene in 'News from Nowhere,' and I recalled also how when he was writing that book I told him that I had fallen in love with Ellen, and he said he had fallen in love with her himself! 'Oh, and I shan't give her up to you not without a tussle for her anyway,' he said, with a smile, but almost jealously, I thought. I found it hard to come away, not daring even to knock at the door, lest it might seem as if I wished to intrude on his seclusion.
He recovered from this attack of illness, but his frame was completely shaken by it, and he was never well again.
On Sunday, August 9, 1896, I again, and for the last time, lectured at Kelmscott House. Morris was then away by his doctor's advice on a cruise to Spitzbergen with his friend John Carruthers, in the forlorn hope of regaining his health, and there was a subdued and inert air about the place. My lecture raised a brisk discussion in the meeting, but the debaters were mostly young men, newcomers into the movement. Robert Blatchford and E.F. Fay (the 'Bounder' of The Clarion), with whom I was at that time intimately associated, came with me to the meeting, and Blatchford said a few words, but none of the old warriors unsheathed their blades. Already the old Kelmscott régime seemed passing away. After the meeting, instead of our having supper in the house, we had supper at my sister's, and made merry till the morning hours; but the thought that he 'My Captain, O My Captain' was fading away, haunted my mirth. He returned from his cruise in no wise benefited by it.
