mentally, step by step. It was as if he thought of the doings of another man—one who was younger and simpler and whose life was now over.
"There are a good many things that are done with," he said mechanically, recalling Haworth's words.
He thought of the model standing in its old place in the empty room. It was a living thing awaiting his coming. The end might be anything—calamity, failure, death!—but to-night he had taken his first step toward that end.
"To-night I shall begin as he began," he thought; "to-night."
He threw himself full length upon the grass, clasping his hands beneath his head, his face turned upward to the vast clearness and depth above him. He had known it would come some day, but he never thought of its coming in this way. The man who slept under the earth at his side had begun with hope; he began as one who neither hoped nor feared, yielding only to a force stronger than himself.
He lay in this manner looking up for nearly an hour. Then he arose and stood with bared head in the white light and stillness.
"I shall not turn back," he said aloud at last, as if to some presence near him. "I shall not turn back, at least. Do not fear it."
And he turned away.
It was his mother who opened the door for him when he reached home.
"Come in," he said to her, with a gesture toward the inner room. "I have something to say to you."
She followed him in silence. Her expression was cold
