girl Anna. I can see her yet, wading there in the dark water, her
skirts all floating about her, hugging her child to her breast and
crying piteously, "I don't dare, oh, I don't dare, but I must, I must!"
Of all that I have told elsewhere.

I stopped a moment and looked down into the water where it reflected
the dark mood of the day, and then turned along the road that runs
between the alders of the river edge and the beeches and oaks of the
hill. It was the way Nort and I had taken more than once, talking great
talk. I thought I might find him there.

And there, indeed, I did find him--and know how some old chivalric
knight must have felt when at last he overtook the quarry which was to
be the guerdon of his lady.

"I shall take him back a captive," I said to myself.

Nort was sitting under a beech tree, looking out upon the cold river. A
veritable picture of desolation! He was whistling in a low monotone, a
way he had. Poor Nort! Life had opened the door of ambition for him,
just a crack, and he had caught glimpses of the glory within, only to
have the door slammed in his face. If he had walked upon cerulean
heights on Sunday he was grovelling in the depths on Monday. It was all
as plain to me as I approached him as if it had been written in a book.

"Hello, Nort," said I.

He started from his place and looked around at me.

"Hello, David," said he carelessly. "What brings you here?"

"You do," said I.

"I do!"

"Yes, I'm about to take you back to Hempfield. The _Star_ finds
difficulty in twinkling without you."

I told him what Anthy had said, and of what I felt to be a new effort to
control the policies of the _Star_. But Nort slowly shook his head.

"No, David. This is the end. I have finished with Hempfield."

I wish I could convey the air of resigned determination that was in his
words; also the cynicism. Pooh! If Hempfield didn't want him, Hempfield
could go hang. He was at the age when he thought he could get away from
life. He had not learned that the only way to get on with life is not to
get out of it, but to get into it.

He told me that he had wired for money to go home; he drew his brows
down in a hard scowl and stared out over the river.

"I've stopped fooling with life," said he tragically.

I could have laughed at him, and yet, somehow, I loved him. It was a
great moment in his life. I sat down by him under the beech.

"I'm going to be free," said Nort. "I'm going to do things yet