Between then and now lies the night, stretching like a bar of verdure across wearying sands.  In that verdure he has rested; he has drunk forgetfulness and self-renewal from those deep wells of sleep.  Soon the play will be ordered on again and he must take his place for parts that are new and confusing to all.  The servitors of the morning have entered and hung wall and ceiling with gorgeous draperies; the dust has been sprinkled; fresh airs are blowing; and there is music, the living orchestra of the living earth.  Well for the waker then if he can look back upon the role he has played with a quiet conscience, and as naturally as the earth greets the sun step forth upon the stage to continue or to end his brief part in the long drama of destiny.

The horizon had hardly begun to turn red when a young man, stretched on his bed by an open window, awoke from troubled sleep.  He lay for a few moments without moving, then he sat up on the edge of the bed.  His hands rested listlessly on his kneecaps and his eyes were fixed on the sky-line crimsoning above his distant woods.

After a while he went over and sat at one of the windows, his eyes still fixed on the path of the coming sun; and a great tragedy of men sat there within him:  the tragedy that has wandered long and that wanders ever, showing its face in all lands, retaining its youth in all ages; the tragedy of love that heeds not law, and the tragedy of law forever punishing heedless love.

Gradually the sounds of life began.  From the shrubs under his window, from the orchard and the wet weeds of fence corners, the birds reentered upon their lives.  Far off in the meadows the cattle rose from their warm dry places, stretched themselves and awoke the echoes of the wide rolling land with peaceful lowing.  A brood mare in a grazing lot sent forth her quick nostril call to the foal capering too wildly about her, and nozzled it with rebuking affection.  On the rosy hillsides white lambs were leaping and bleating, or running down out of sight under the white sea-fog of the valleys.  A milk cart rattled along the turnpike toward the town.

It had become broad day.

He started up and crossed the hall to the bedroom opposite, and stood looking down at his younger brother.  How quiet Dent’s sleep was; how clear the current of his life had run and would run always!  No tragedy would ever separate him and the woman he loved.

When he went downstairs the perfect orderliness of his mother’s housekeeping had been before him.  Doors and windows had been opened to the morning freshness, sweeping and dusting had been done, not a servant was in sight.  His setters lay waiting on the porch and as he stepped out they hurried up with glistening eyes and soft barkings and followed him as he passed around to the barn.  Work was in progress there:  the play of currycombs, the whirl of the cutting-box, the noise of the mangers, the bellowing of calves, the rich streamy sounds of the milking.  He called his men to him one after another, laying out the work of the day.