And then we started.  It was a dreary hour that, full of deep and gnawing pain.  I pictured to myself Cynthia at every moment, what she was doing and thinking; how swiftly the good days had flown; how perfectly happy I had been; and so my wretched silent reverie went on.

“I must say,” said Amroth at length, breaking a dismal silence, “that this is very tedious.  Can’t you take some interest?  I have very disagreeable things to do, but that is no reason why I should be bored as well!” And he then set himself to talk with much zest of all my old friends and companions, telling me how each was faring.  Charmides, it seemed, had become a very accomplished architect and designer; Philip was a teacher at the College.  And he went on until, in spite of my heaviness, I felt the whole of life beginning to widen and vibrate all about me, and a sense almost of shame creeping into my mind that I had become so oblivious of all the other friendships and relations I had formed.  I forced myself to talk and to ask questions, and found myself walking more briskly.  It was not very long before we parted with Lucius.  He was left at the doors of a great barrack-like like building, and Amroth told me he was to be employed as an officer, very much in the same way as the young man who was sent to conduct me away from the trial; and I felt what a good officer Lucius would make—­smart, prompt, polite, and not in the least sentimental.

So we went on together rather gloomily; and then Amroth let me look for a little deep into his heart; and I saw that it was filled with a kind of noble pity for me in my suffering; but behind the pity lay that blissful certainty which made Amroth so light-hearted, that it was just so, through suffering, that one became wise; and he could no more think of it as irksome or sad than a jolly undergraduate thinks of the training for a race or the rowing in the race as painful, but takes it all with a kind of high-hearted zest, and finds even the nervousness an exciting thing, life lived at high pressure in a crowded hour.

XXXI

And thus we came ourselves to a new place, though I took but little note of all we passed, for my mind was bent inward upon itself and upon Cynthia.  The place was a great solid stone building, in many courts, with fine tree-shaded fields all about; a school, it seemed to me, with boys and girls going in and out, playing games together.  Amroth told me that children were bestowed here who had been of naturally fine and frank dispositions, but who had lived their life on earth under foul and cramped conditions, by which they had been fretted rather than tainted.  It seemed a very happy and busy place.  Amroth took me into a great room that seemed a sort of library or common-room.  There was no one there, and I was glad to sit and rest; when suddenly the door opened, and a man came in with outstretched hands and a smile of welcome.  I looked up, and it was none but