Cherbourg, and Wrexler spoke of himself for the first time
since we had left New York.

"You know, Jim, for perhaps the only time in my life I feel at peace, as
though something that I should have done long ago has been at last
accomplished."

He was so solemn that I laughed a little. He stopped me suddenly: "It's
true--I've always felt an urge within me, a blinding force pushing me
toward something that is waiting for me: where, I do not know; what, I
have no idea. For the first time, it's gone--that nameless urge that I
knew not how to satisfy, and I feel that the call's being answered."

With the usual inanity of people at a loss for words, I said the first
thing that came into my mind: "Perhaps Rougemont has been calling you."

"You've no idea what a relief it is," he continued, "not to feel
constantly pulled with no way of knowing toward what, or how to go about
answering the summons. I have often thought that I should take my
life--that that was what was meant----" His voice trailed off.

This time I was not at a loss for words. I started to read him a lecture
that would have done credit to Martin Luther or John Knox. At the end of
my harangue Wrexler laughed, a rare thing for him, and put his arm
through mine.

"All that's gone now. Didn't I tell you that at last in some strange way
I am at peace?"

* * * * *

Rougemont's towers were visible long before we reached the great iron
gates that had to be swung open to let us pass. For miles the great
edifice dominated the landscape. The huge building had a soft, reddish
tinge, from which I supposed it derived its name--Red Mountain. It was a
fairy-tale palace perched on a mountain top. A great thrill went through
me as I realized that this beautiful chateau was mine, and as we drove
through the gates, up the winding road, through my own forest, the pride
of possession swelled up in me and for the first time I began to
understand why my father had never put his foot outside the great gates
and the high wall that enclosed the acres that now belonged to me.

As we drove on, up the winding, narrow road, over the drawbridge that
spanned the moat, into the courtyard, I understood more and more. Here
was everything: beauty such as I had never dreamed, forests stocked with
game, running brooks full of fish, a lake, and farther off, a farm--I
could glimpse its thatched roofs--to supply our wants. Rougemont was a
world in itself.

The