Ah! the lark! 
He hath the heaven which he sings,—­
But my poor hawk hath only wings.

The success of the capture of this final perfection of statement of his own thought refreshed him in a way which is one of the mysteries of that wild charlatan imagination, who now and then administers tonics to the weary which are of inexplicable value.  John Penhallow felt the sudden uplift and quickened his pace until he paused within the bastion lines of the fort.  Before him, with her back to him, sat Leila.  Her hat lay beside her finished sketch.  She was thinking that John Penhallow, the boy friend, was to-day in its accepted sense but an acquaintance, of whom she desired, without knowing why, to know more.  That he had changed was obvious.  In fact, he had only developed on the lines of his inherited character, while in the revolutionary alterations of perfected womanhood she had undergone a far more radical transformation.

The young woman, whom now he watched unseen, rose and stood on the crumbling wall.  A roughly caressing northwest wind blew back her skirts.  She threw out her wide-sleeved arms in exultant pleasure at the magnificence of the vast river, with its forest boundaries, and the rock-ribbed heights of Crow’s Nest.  As she stood looking “taller than human,” she reminded him of the figure of victory he had seen as a boy on the stairway of the Louvre.  He stood still—­again refreshed.  The figure he then saw lived with him through life, strangely recurrent in moments of peril, on the march, or in the loneliness of his tent.

“Good evening,” he said as he came near.  She sat down on the low wall and he at her feet.  “Ah, it is good to get you alone for a quiet talk, Leila.”

She was aware of a wild desire to lay a hand among the curls his cadet-cropped hair still left over his forehead.  “Do you really like the life here, John?”

“Oh, yes.  It is so definite—­its duties are so plain—­nothing is left to choice.  Like it?  Yes, I like it.”

“But, isn’t it very limited?”

“All good education must be—­it is only a preparation; but one’s imagination is free—­as to a man’s future, and as to ambitions.  There one can use one’s wings.”

She continued her investigation.  “Then you have ambitions.  Yes, you must have,” she cried with animation.  “Oh, I want you to have them—­ideals too of life.  We used to discuss them.”

He looked up.  “You think I have changed.  You want to know how.  It is all vague—­very vague.  Yet, I could put my creed of what conduct is desirable in life in a phrase—­in a text.”

“Do, John.”  She leaned over in her interest.

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God the things which are God’s.”  The seriousness of the upturned face for a moment kept her silently reflective.

“Caesar!  What of Caesar, John?”

“My country, of course; that is simple.  The rest, Leila, covers all—­almost all of life and needs no comment.  But how serious we are.  Tell me all about home and the village and the horses and Uncle Jim.  He has some grey hairs.”