“How absurd we are!” she murmured.  “He will not be up for hours.  Very likely even the servants will not be astir.”

“Servants!”

Aaron repeated the word, frowning.  She only smiled.

“You mustn’t be foolish, dear.  Don’t have prejudices.  Remember that we are walking along a very narrow way.  We have climbed only a few steps of the hill.  He is more than half-way to the top.  Things are different with him.  Don’t judge; only wait.”

She rang the bell of the house a little timidly.  The door was opened without any delay by a man servant in sombre, every-day clothes.

“We wish to see Mr. Maraton,” Julia announced.  “He is not up yet, of course, but might we come in and wait?”

“Mr. Maraton is in his study, madam,” the man answered.

He disappeared and beckoned them, a moment or so later, to follow him.  They were shown into a much smaller apartment at the rear of the house.  Maraton was sitting before a desk covered with papers, with a breakfast tray by his side.  He looked up at their entrance, but his face was inexpressive.  He did not even smile.  The sunlight died out of Julia’s face, and her heart sank.

“I am sorry,” she began haltingly.  “I ought not to have come again, I know.  But it is my brother.  Night and day he has thought of nothing else but your coming.”

Aaron seemed to have forgotten his timidity.  He crossed the room and stood before Maraton’s desk.  His face seemed to have caught some of the freshness of the early morning.  He was no longer the sallow, pinched starveling.  He was like a young prophet whose eyes are burning with enthusiasm.

“You have come to help us,” he asserted.  “You are Maraton!”

“I have come to help you,” Maraton replied.  “I have come to do what I can.  It isn’t an easy task in this country, you know, to do anything, but I think in the end we shall succeed.  If you are Julia Thurnbrein’s brother, you should know something of the work.”

“I am only one of the multitude,” Aaron sighed.  “I haven’t the brains to organise.  I talk sometimes but I get too excited.  There are others—­many others—­who speak more convincingly, but no one feels more than I feel, no one prays for the better times more fervently than I. It isn’t for myself—­it isn’t for ourselves, even; it’s for the children, it’s for the next generation.”

Maraton held out his hand suddenly.

“My young friend,” he said, “you have spoken the words I like to hear.  Some of my helpers I have found, at times, selfish.  They are satisfied with the small things that lie close at hand, some material benefit which really is of no account at all.  That isn’t the work for us to engage in.  Sit down.  Sit down, Miss Julia.  You have breakfasted?”

“Before we left,” Julia assured him.

“Never mind, you shall breakfast again,” Maraton declared.  “It is a good augury that the first words I have heard from one of ourselves have been words such as your brother has spoken.  To tell you the truth, I came over here in fear and trembling.  Some of your leaders have frightened me a little.”