sense of excitement. Some one needed him, and he wanted urgently to
be needed. He turned from the window and ran his eyes over the long,
wide, low-ceilinged masculine room, every single thing in which
spelled Father to him; then he went back to the chair the right to
sit in which had been given to him by death, persuaded that over the
unseen wires that stretch from heart to heart a signal had been
sent, certain that he was to hold himself in readiness to do
something for Joan.

He had written out the words, "We count it death to falter, not to
die" on a long strip of card in big bold letters. They faced him as
he sat and read over and over again what he regarded as his father's
message. It was a call to service, an inspiration to activity, and
it had already filled him with the determination to fall into step
with the movement of the world, to put the money of which he was now
the most reluctant owner to some use as soon as the necessary legal
steps of proving his father's Will had been taken. He had made up
his mind to leave the countryside at the end of the week and meet
his father's lawyers and take advice as to how he could hitch
himself to some vigorous and operative pursuit. He was going, please
God, to build up a workmanlike monument to the memory of his father.

Ten o'clock struck, and uninterested in his book, he would have gone
to bed but for the growing feeling that he was not his own master,
that he might be required at any moment. The feeling became so
strong that finally he got up and went into the hall. He couldn't
wait any longer. He must go out, slip into the garden of the Ludlow
house and search the windows for a sight of Joan.

He unbolted the front door, gave a little gasp and found himself