He resumed his seat.  The empty chairs pushed back seemed, somehow or other, allegorical.  He was alone.  The man for whose friendship he had indeed felt some desire, the man who had opened his hands and heart to him—­Stephen Foley—­would know him henceforth no more.  He drew his thoughts resolutely away from that side of his life, closed his ears to the music which beat there, crushed down the fancies which sprang up so easily if ever he relaxed his hold upon his will.  He was lonely; for the first time in his life, perhaps, intensely lonely.  In all the country there was scarcely a human being who would not soon look upon him as a madman.  What did one live for, after all?  Just to continue the dull, hopeless struggle—­to fight without hope of reward, to fight with oneself as well as with the world?

The door was opened softly.  Julia came in.  Perhaps she guessed from his attitude something of his trouble, for she moved at once to his side.

“They have gone?” she asked.

“They have gone,” he admitted.

She sighed.

“I shall not ask you anything,” she said, “because I know.  Pigs of men—­pigs with their noses to the ground!  How can they lift their heads!  You could not make them understand!”

“I scarcely tried,” he confessed.  “They have found out, for one thing, that I am wealthy, a fact that does not concern them in the least, and they accused me of it as though it were a crime.  It was all so hopeless.  You cannot make men understand who have not the capacity for understanding.  You cannot make the blind see.  They even reminded me that they were Englishmen.  They talked the usual rubbish about conquest and foreign enemies and patriotism.”

“Clods!” she muttered.  “But you?”

She sat down beside him, her eyes full of light.  She laid her hands boldly upon his.

“You will not let yourself be discouraged?” she I pleaded.  “Remember that even if you are alone in the world, you are right.  You fight without hope of reward, without hope of appreciation.  You will be the enemy of every one, and yet you know in your heart that you have the truth.  You know it, and I know it, and Aaron knows it, and David Ross believes it.  There are millions of others, if you could only find them, who understand, too—­men too great to come out from their studies and talk claptrap to the mob.  There are other people in the world who understand, who will sympathise.  What does it matter that you cannot hear their spoken voices?  And we—­well, you know about us.”

Her voice was almost a caress, the loneliness in his heart was so intense.

“Oh, you know about us!” she continued.  “I—­oh, I am your slave!  And Aaron!  We believe, we understand.  There isn’t anything in this world,” she went on, with a little sob, “there isn’t anything I wouldn’t gladly do to help you!  If only one could help!”