oad as much
as possible. With the rising of the sun, he crept into a wayside hovel
and lay there hidden for hours. Hunger and thirst seemed like things
which had passed him by. It was sleep only which he craved, sleep and
forgetfulness.

Dusk was falling again before he found himself upon his feet, starting
out once more upon this strangely thought-of pilgrimage. This time he
kept to the road, plodding along with tired, dejected footsteps, which
had in them still something of that restless haste which drove him
ceaselessly onward as though he were indeed possessed of some unquiet
spirit. He was recovering now, however, a little of his natural common
sense. He remembered that he must have food and drink, and he sought
them from the wayside public-house like an ordinary traveler, conquering
without any apparent effort that first invincible repugnance of his
toward the face of any human being. Then on again across this strange
land of windmills and spreading plains, until the darkness forced him
to take shelter once more. That night he slept like a child. With the
morning, the fever had passed from his blood. A great wind blew in his
face even as he opened his eyes, touched to wakefulness by the morning
sun, a wind that came booming over the level places, salt with the touch
of the ocean and fragrant with the perfume of many marsh plants. He was
coming toward the sea now, and within a very short distance from where
he had spent the night, he found a broad, shining river stealing into
the land. With eager fingers he stripped himself and plunged in, diving
again and again below the surface, swimming with long, lazy strokes
backwards and forwards. Afterwards he lay down in the warm, dry grass,
dressed himself slowly, and went on his way. The wind, which had
increased now since the early morning, came thundering across the level
land, bending the tops of the few scattered trees, sending the sails of
the windmills spinning, bringing on its bosom now stronger than ever the
flavor of the sea itself, salt and stimulating. Tavernake told himself
that this was a new world into which he was coming. He would pass into
its embrace and life would become a new thing.

Towards evening with many a thrill of reminiscence, he descended a steep
hill and walked into a queer time-forgotten village, whose scattered
red-tiled cottages were built around an arm of the sea. Boldly enough
now he entered the one inn which flaunted its sign upon the c