Alick’s face lightened.  “Yes,” he said, “that is my dream—­at least one of them.  I would not care how small the place might be, if I had supreme control and might work unhindered in my own way.”

“It will come,” said Mr. Gryce cheerily.  “All things come in time to him who knows how to wait.”

“Ah, if I could believe that!” sighed Alick, thinking of Leam.

“Take my word for it,” returned Mr. Gryce.  “It will do you no harm to have a dash of rose-color in your rather sombre life; and Hope, if it tells flattering tales, does not always tell untrue ones.”

“I fear my hope has flattered me untruly,” said Alick, his faithful heart still on Leam.

Mr. Gryce captured a caterpillar wandering across the road.  “Conduct is fate,” he said.  “If this poor fellow had not been troubled with a fit of restlessness, but had been content to lie safely hidden among the grass-roots where he was born, he would not have been caught.  Yes, conduct is fate for a captive caterpillar as well as for man.”

“And yet who can foresee?” said Alick.  “We all walk in the dark blindfold.”

“As you say, who can foresee?  That makes perhaps the hardship of it, but it does not alter the fact.  Blindly walking or with our eyes wide open, our steps determine our destiny, and our goal is reached by our own endeavors.  We ourselves are the artificers of our lives, and mould them according to our own pattern.”

“But that part of our lives which is under the influence of another?  How can we manipulate that?” said Alick.  “Love and loss are twin powers which create or crush without our co-operation.”

“I only know one irreparable manner of loss—­that by death,” said Mr. Gryce steadfastly.  “For all others while there is life there is hope, and I hold nothing, beyond the power of the will to remedy.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Alick sighed again; and again Mr. Gryce said cheerily, “Then take that too on trust, and believe me if you do not believe in your own inborn elasticity, your own power of doing and undoing.”

“There are some things which can never come right when they have once gone wrong,” said Alick.

“You think so?  I know very few,” his companion answered in the hearty, inspiriting manner which he had used all through the interview, talking with a broader accent and lisping less than usual, looking altogether more manly and less cherubic than his wont.  “I am a believer myself in the power of the will and holding on.”  After a pause he added suddenly, “You would be really glad of a small living, no matter where situated, nor how desolate and unimportant, where you would be sole master?”

“Yes,” said Alick.  “If I could win over one soul to the higher life, I should count myself repaid for all my exertions.  We must all have our small beginnings.”

“I am an odd old fellow, as you know, Mr. Corfield,” laughed Emmanuel Gryce.  “Give me your hand:  I can sometimes see a good deal of the future in the hand.”