As the night advanced, he fell under the influence of his book, was drawn out of his poor house, away from his obscure town, his unknown college, quitted his country and his age, passing backward until there fell around him the glorious dawn of the race before the sunrise of written history:  the immortal still trod the earth; the human soldier could look away from his earthly battle-field and see, standing on a mountain crest, the figure and the authority of his Divine Commander.  Once more it was the flower-dyed plain, blood-dyed as well; the ships drawn up by the gray, the wrinkled sea; over on the other side, well-built Troy; and the crisis of the long struggle was coming.  Hector, of the glancing plume, had come back to the city for the last time, mindful of his end.

He read once more through the old scene that is never old, and then put his book aside and sat thoughtful. “I know not if the gods will not overthrow me. . . .  I have very sore shame if, like a coward, I shrink away from battle; moreover mine own soul forbiddeth me. . . .  Destiny . . . no man hast escaped, be he coward or be he valiant, when once he hath been born.”

His eyes had never rested on any spot in human history, however separated in time and place, where the force of those words did not seem to reign.  Whatsoever the names under which men have conceived and worshipped their gods or their God, however much they have believed that it was these or it was He who overthrew them and made their destinies inescapable, after all, it is the high compulsion of the soul itself, the final mystery of personal choice, that sends us forth at last to our struggles and to our peace:  “mine own soul forbiddeth me”—­there for each is right and wrong, the eternal beauty of virtue.

He did not notice the sound of approaching wheels, and that the sound ceased at his door.

A moment later and Isabel with light footsteps stood before him.  He sprang up with a cry and put his arms around her and held her.

“You shall never go away again.”

“No, I am never going away again; I have come back to marry Rowan.”

These were her first words to him as they sat face to face.  And she quickly went on: 

“How is he?”

He shook his head reproachfully at her:  “When I saw him at least he seemed better than you seem.”

“I knew he was not well—­I have known it for a long time.  But you saw him—­in town—­on the street—­with his friends—­attending to business?”

“Yes—­in town—­on the street—­with his friends—­attending to business.”

“May I stay here?  I ordered my luggage to be sent here.”

“Your room is ready and has always been ready and waiting since the day you left.  I think Anna has been putting fresh flowers in it all autumn.  You will find some there to-night.  She has insisted of late that you would soon be coming home.”