l discipline he reduced his mood to one of mute
resignation.

Then the thought of America came to him, and he was seized with an
impetuous craving for his own country, his own land, where men's natures
were broad and mountainous, like America itself. He pictured New York
towering into the skies, the charming homes of Boston, where so many
happy hours had been spent in genial, cultured controversy. He smelt the
ozone of the West, where sandy plains melted into the horizon; where men
lived in the open, and a man was your friend for no better reason than
that he was following the same trail as yourself.

America. . . . He was impatient now of every day that kept him in
England. He felt that his emotions, his brain, his convictions would all
be rudderless until he breathed once more the air of the New World, with
its vassal oceans bringing tribute to both Eastern and Western coasts.

He would not call himself a failure or a success until he looked on his
handiwork in the light of the great Republic. As his ancestors leaving
the shores of Holland and Ireland, as millions of men and women had done
with the Old World dwindling away in the distance, he looked towards
America for the answer to existence.

Ten days after his admission he was allowed to leave the hospital for his
rooms in St. James's Square.

He took his leave of the little group who had been his companions
for the time--the little Cockney with his incessant exuberance; the
French-Canadian, picturesque of language and imagination; the one
remaining Australian, vigorous of thought and forceful of temperament;
the nurse, carrying Florence Nightingale's lamp through the
blackness of war. He tried to say a little of what was bursting for
utterance, but they only laughed and fenced it off. They wished him
'Cheerio--good-bye--good luck;' and he wondered if the whole realm of
lived or written drama held any farewell more sublimely expressive of a
great people enduring to the uttermost.

His servant had a taxi-cab waiting for him. Driving first to a
florist's, he purchased roses for the nurse; then, stopping at a
tobacconist's, he left a generous order for all the occupants of the
ward. After that he went directly to the American Consul's office and
made arrangements for his return to New York.

VI.

It was late in December when, driving to Waterloo to catch the boat-train
to Southampton, Selwyn was held up in the Strand by the crush of people
welcomi