"

With recovery from his physical ill-being came a new mental
restlessness; the return, rather, of a mood which had always assailed
him when he lost for a time his ideal hope. He demanded of life the joy
natural to his years; revolted against the barrenness of his lot. A
terror fell upon him lest he should be fated never to know the supreme
delight of which he was capable, and for which alone he lived. Even now
was he not passing his prime, losing the keener faculties of youth? He
trembled at the risks of every day; what was his assurance against the
common ill-hap which might afflict him with disease, blight his life
with accident, so that no woman's eye could ever be tempted to rest
upon him? He cursed the restrictions which held him on a straight path
of routine, of narrow custom, when a world of possibilities spread
about him on either hand, the mirage of his imprisoned spirit.
Adventurous projects succeeded each other in his thoughts. He turned to
the lands where life was freer, where perchance his happiness awaited
him, had he but the courage to set forth. What brought him to London,
this squalid blot on the map of the round world? Why did he consume the
irrecoverable hours amid its hostile tumult, its menacing gloom?

On the first Sunday in September he aroused himself to travel by an
early train, which bore him far into the country. He had taken a ticket
at hazard for a place with a pleasant-sounding name, and before village
bells had begun to ring he was wandering in deep lanes amid the weald
of Sussex. All about him lay the perfect loveliness of that rural
landscape which is the old England, the true England, the England dear
to the best of her children. Meadow and copse, the yellow rank of
new-reaped sheaves, brown roofs of farm and cottage amid shadowing
elms, the grassy borders of the road, hedges with their flowered
creepers and promise of wild fruit--these things brought him comfort.
Mile after mile he wandered, losing himself in simplest enjoyment,
forgetting to ask why he was alone. When he felt hungry, an inn
supplied him with a meal. Again he rambled on, and in a leafy corner
found a spot where he could idle for an hour or two, until it was time
to think of the railway station.

He had tired himself; his mind slipped from the beautiful things around
him, and fell into the old reverie. He murmured the haunting
name--Irene. As well as for her who bore it, he loved the name for its
meaning. Peace! As