ay in the face of
his one, big world-desire--now came to trouble him.

It seemed that one must forever go in circles. With fine courage he had
made straight off to toil up the high difficult paths of the ideal.
Never had he consciously turned, nor even swerved. Yet here he was at
length upon his old tracks, come again to the wondering girl.

Did it mean, then, that his soul was baffled--or did it mean that his
soul would not suffer him to baffle it, try as he might? Was that girl
of the old days to greet him with her wondering eyes at the end of every
high path? These and many other questions he asked himself.

At the close of this day he sought her, eager for the light of her
understanding eyes--for a certain waiting sympathy she never withheld.
As she looked up now with a kind of composed gladness, it seemed to him
that they two alone, out of all the world, were sanely quiet. Silently
he sank into a chair near her and they sat long thus, feeling no need of
words. At last she spoke.

"Are you coming nearer to it, Bernal?"

He laughed.

"I'm farther away than ever, Nance. Probably there's but one creature in
this city to-day as out of place as I am. He's a big, awkward,
country-looking dog, and he was lost on Broadway. Did you ever see a
lost dog in a city street? This fellow was actually in a panic, wholly
demoralised, and yet he seemed to know that he must conceal it for his
own safety. So he affected a fine air of confidence, of being very busy
about an engagement for which he feared he might be late. He would trot
swiftly along for half a block, then pause as if trying to recall the
street number; then trot a little farther, and stop to look back as if
the other party to his engagement might happen along from that
direction. It was a splendid bit of acting, and it deceived them all, in
that street of mutterers and hard faces. He was like one of them, busy
and hurried, but apparently cool, capable, and ominously alert. Only, in
his moments of indecision, his eyes shifted the least bit nervously, as
if to note whether the real fear he felt were detected, and then I could
read all his secret consternation.

"I'm the same lost dog, Nance. I feel as he felt every time I go into
that street where the poor creatures hurry and talk to themselves from
sheer nervous fatigue."

He ceased speaking, but she remained silent, fearing lest she say too
little or too much.

"Nance," he said presently with a slow, whimsical