'd better go to bed. I'm just about all in....
Wonder how Blair and Red are."

His mother followed him up the narrow stairway, talking, trying to
pretend she did not see his dragging steps, his clutch on the
banisters.

"Your room's just as you left it," she said, opening the door. Then on
the threshold she kissed him. "My son, I thank God you have come home
alive. You give me hope in--in spite of all.... If you need me, call.
Good night."

Lane was alone in the little room that had lived in waking and
dreaming thought. Except to appear strangely smaller, it had not
changed. His bed and desk--the old bureau--the few pictures--the
bookcase he had built himself--these were identical with images in his
memory.

A sweet and wonderful emotion of peace pervaded his soul--fulfilment
at last of the soldier's endless longing for home, bed, quiet, rest.

"If I have to die--I can do it _now_ without hate of all around me,"
he whispered, in the passion of his spirit.

But as he sat upon his bed, trying with shaking and clumsy hands to
undress himself, that exalted mood flashed by. Some of the dearest
memories of his life were associated with this little room. Here he
had dreamed; here he had read and studied; here he had fought out some
of the poignant battles of youth. So much of life seemed behind him.
At last he got undressed, and extinguishing the light, he crawled into
bed.

The darkness was welcome, and the quiet was exquisitely soothing. He
lay there, staring into the blackness, feeling his body sink slowly as
if weighted. How cool and soft the touch of sheets! Then, the river of
throbbing fire that was his blood, seemed to move again. And the dull
ache, deep in the bones, possessed his nerves. In his breast there
began a vibrating, as if thousands of tiny bubbles were being pricked
to bursting in his lungs. And the itch to cough came back to his
throat. And all his flesh seemed in contention with a slowly ebbing
force. Sleep might come perhaps after pain had lulled. His heart beat
unsteadily and weakly, sometimes with a strange little flutter. How
many weary interminable hours had he endured! But to-night he was too
far spent, too far gone for long wakefulness. He drifted away and sank
as if into black oblivion where there sounded the dreadful roll of
drums, and images moved under gray clouds, and men were running like
phantoms. He awoke from nightmares, wet with cold sweat, and lay
staring again at the blackness,