But the night just passed would never be forgotten by Robert Sumner, and
had marked a vital change in his life. He had walked the floor of his
moonlighted room until the early morning hours, his thoughts given
wholly to the great subject Malcom's unconscious words had opened within
his mind. Could it be that unconsciously, through weakness, he had
yielded himself to a selfish course of living? He, whose one aim and
ideal had ever been to give his life and its opportunities for the
benefit of others? Had his view been a narrow one, when he had so longed
that it should be wide and ever wider?

It really began to seem so in the pitiless glare of the light now thrown
upon it. He had surely been living for his fellow-men. He had been
striving to make his own culture helpful to those who were less happy in
opportunity. But had his outlook been far and wide enough? Had not the
personal sorrow to which he had yielded narrowed to his eyes the
world,--_his_ world, in which God had put him? Living on here in his
loved Italy, the knowledge he had gained was being sent out to aid those
who already had enough to enable them to follow into the higher paths he
opened. His pictures, every one of which had grown out of his own heart,
were bearing messages to those whose eyes were opened to read. But what
of the great mass of humanity, God's humanity too, which was waiting for
some one to awaken the very first desires for culture? For some one to
open, never so little, the blind eyes? As Malcom had said, no one, no
foreigner certainly, could ever reach this class of people in Italy. The
Church and the heavy hand of past centuries of ignorance forbade this.

But what of the great young land across the waters where he had been
born--his own land--the refuge of the poor of all countries of the
earth, even of his dear Italy? Surely no power of influence there could