how easy it becomes to make light of the last, monotonous stretch of
road that remains to be travelled. Is there not, just beyond, a
resting-place?--and cool, green shadows? Events and circumstances which
had hitherto loomed forth gigantic, threatening to crush, now appeared
to Maurice trivial and of little moment; he saw them in other
proportions now, for it seemed to him that he was no longer in their
midst: he stood above them and overlooked them, and, with his eyes
fixed upon a starry future, he joyfully prepared himself for his new
life. What is more, those around him helped him to this altered view
of things. For as the present marched steadily upon the future,
devouring as it went; as the departure this future contained took on
the shape of a fact, the countless details of which called for
attention, it began to be accepted as even the most unpalatable facts
in the long run usually are, with an ungracious resignation in face of
the inevitable. Thus, with all his ardour to be gone, Maurice Guest
came to see the last stage of his home-life almost in a bright light,
and even with a touch of melancholy, as something that was fast
slipping from him, never to be there in all its entirety, exactly as
it now was, again: the last calm hour of respite before he plunged
into the triumphs, but also into the tossings and agitations of the
future.




III.



It was April, and a day such as April will sometimes bring: one of