ry hand of Mrs. Garland. He went out again, disappearing over
the Hill into that quarter of the town which was less cheering than
honest slums. Returning, about ten, he found the Dabney House entirely
silent: all quiet from the direction of the sick-room. All quiet, too,
in the tall bare office. Very quiet, indeed....

It was a strange-looking room to be a doctor's office; on the whole a
strange-looking young man to be a doctor; no stereotyped thoughts, it
may be, pounding through the head he held so fast between his hands.
Strange entanglements were here, too, with the brilliant life over the
Gulf: a life whose visible thread, it is easily surmised, will hardly
lead us by this ancient secretary again.

He was all alone in the world; very much so. His father was dead; and
his mother, who had married a penniless idealist for love, was dead
these many years. Fifteen he was when she died ... a long time ago. And
he had had nobody since. He had just been beginning to feel close to his
Uncle Armistead, and now Uncle Armistead was dead, too. And he had no
sisters or brothers. He had no wife or children....

He was alone, and by that token he was free. No tie bound up the hope of
others in him. Had he felt the sting of youth's rage to make things
better? No bond of another's claim withheld him from spending himself to
the uttermost.

All this had long been clear. Long clear also were the two paths trod by
the noble army, men and boys. There were those who preached a more
abundant living; and there were those who lived that living.... A
glorious thing, indeed, it was for a man so to go his quiet ways that he
became an example and model to his fellows, who were made better in that
their lives had touched his exemplary one. But here, alas, was an
aspiration for the saints, not for weak men with known bitternesses and
passions in their blood, and all youth's furies hot upon them. And
surely in that other summons there was, besides, the thrill of romance,
such as the young love. There was the trumpeting to high adventure. Few
there were to touch, few to remember, even the saintliest life lived in
a noble narrowness, a noble silence. But the word of truth, spoken from
no matter what obscurity, will rise and ring round the world, and remain
forever in the pattern of men's thought. Here, indeed, was a 'bliss to
die with, dim-descried.'...

So it was that one boy had found his heroic ideal, long since, in the
grim voice crying in