with use. His mother had wished it to remain. Only his clothes had been
sent back to her who had sent him forth to prepare for his life-work,
and received word in her distant home that his life-work had been
already swiftly accomplished.

Courtland entered the room and looked around.

There were no traces of the fray that had marred the place when last he
saw it. Everything was clean and fine and orderly. The simple saint-like
face of the plain farmer's-wife-mother looked down upon it all with
peace and resignation. This life was not all. There was another. Her
eyes said that. Paul Courtland stood a long time gazing into them.

Then he closed the door and knelt by the little table, laying his
forehead reverently upon the Bible.

Since he had returned to college and things of life had become more
real, Reason had returned to her throne and was crying out against his
"fancies." What was that experience in the hospital but the phantasy of
a sick brain? What was the Presence but a fevered imagination? He had
been growing ashamed of dwelling upon the thought, ashamed of liking to
feel that the Presence was near when he was falling asleep at night.
Most of all he had felt a shame and a land of perplexity in the
biblical-literature class where he faced "FACTS" as the professor called
them, spoken in capitals. SCIENCE was another force which
mocked his fancies. PHILOSOPHY cooled his mind and wakened him
from his dreams. In this atmosphere he was beginning to think that he
had been delirious, and was gradually returning to his normal state,
albeit with a restless dissatisfaction he had never known before.