he relief of one glad to make a new beginning, to have a work to do,
and leave old things behind, he had taken both the others with him.

So it was true! My noble-looking Harold had those dark lines in his
spectrum. Wild ungovernable strength had whirled him in mere boyhood
at the beck of his passions, and when most men are entering freshly
upon life, he was already saddened and sobered by sin and suffering.
The stories whispered of him were more than true. I remember I cried
over them as I sat alone that evening. Eustace had not told all with
the extenuations that I discovered gradually, some even then by
cross-questioning, and much by the tuition of that sisterly affection
that had gone out from me to Harold, and fastened on him as the one
who, to me, represented family ties.

I never thought of breaking with him. No, if I had been told he might
be insane that very night, it would have bound me to him the more. And
when I went to bid him "Good-night" and take away Dora, and saw the
massive features in their stillness light up into a good-natured smile
of thanks at my inquiries, I could believe it all the less. He was
lying cornerwise across the bed, with a stool beyond for his feet to
rest on, and laughed a little as he said he always had to contrive
thus, he never found a bed long enough; and our merriment over this
seemed to render what Eustace had told me even more incongruous in one
so scrupulously gentle.

That gentleness was perhaps reactionary in one who had had such lessons
in keeping back his strength. He had evidently come forth a changed
man. But that vow of his--was it the binding of a worse lion than that
he had fought with to-day? Yet could such things be done in the might
of a merely human will? And what token was there of the higher aid
being invoked? My poor Harold! I could only pray for him! Alas! did
he pray for himself?

I was waked in early morning by Dora's vociferous despair at the
disappearance of her big patient, and then Eustace's peremptory fretful
tone was heard silencing her by explaining that Harold's hurts had
become so painful that he had walked off to Mycening to have the
bandages loosened.

Indeed, when we met at breakfast, Eustace seemed to think himself
injured by the interruption of his slumbers by Harold's coming to him
for assistance in putting on his clothes, and stared at my dismay at
his having permitted such an exertion. Before long, however, we saw an
un