mind that the pool which he had seen that morning was an allegory
of what he had now heard. The living water, breaking up so clearly
from underground in the grassy valley, and passing downwards to
gladden the earth! It would be used, be tainted, be troubled, but
he saw that no soil or stain, no scattering or disruption, could
ever really intrude itself into that elemental purity. The stream
would reunite itself, the impregnable atom would let the staining
substance fall unheeded. He would have to consider all that,
scrutinise his life in a new light. He felt that he had been living
on the surface of things, relying on impression, living in
impression, missing the strong central current all the time. He
rose, and taking his aunt's hand, kissed her cheek.

"Those are my thanks!" he said smiling. "I can't express my
gratitude, but you have given me so much to think about and to
ponder over that I can say no more now. I do indeed feel that I
have missed what is perhaps the greatest thing in the world. But I
ask myself, Can I attain to this, is it for me? Am I not condemned
by temperament to live in the surface-values?"

"No, dear child," said Mrs. Graves, looking at him, so that for an
instant he felt like a child indeed at a mother's knee; "we all
come home thus, sooner or later; and the time has come for you. I
knew it the moment I opened your letter. He is at the gate, I said,
and I may have the joy of being beside him when the door is
opened."