airs of living men. The desolation of impotence was upon him.

For a little time he lay very still, looking up at the firelight
playing upon the mouldings of the ceiling, trying to reconcile himself
to this. His mind was clear, yet, except when actually speaking, he
found it difficult to keep his attention fixed. Images, sensations
began to chase each other across his mental field of vision; and his
thought, though definite as to detail, grew increasingly broken and
incoherent, small matters in unseemly fashion jostling great. He
wondered concerning those first steps of the disembodied spirit, when
it has crossed the threshold of death; and then, incontinently, he
passed to certain time-honoured jokes and impertinent follies at Eton,
over which he, and Roger and Major St. Quentin had laughed a hundred
times. They amused him greatly even yet. But he could not linger with
them. He was troubled about the attics of the new lodge, now in
building at the entrance to the east woods. The windows were too small,
and he disliked that blind north gable. There were letters to be
answered too. Lord Fallowfeild wanted to know about something--he could
not remember what--Fallowfeild's inquiries had a habit of being vague.
And through all these things--serious or trivial--a terrible yearning
over Katherine and her baby--the new, little, human life which was his
own life, and which yet he would never know or see. And through all
these things also, the perpetual, heavy ache of those severed nerves
and muscles, flitting pains in the limb of which, though it was gone,
he had not ceased to be aware.--He dozed off, and mortal weakness
closed down on him, floating him out and out into vague spaces. And
then suddenly, once more, he felt a horse under him and gripped it with
his knees. He was riding, riding, whole and vigorous, with the summer
wind in his face, across vast, flowering pastures towards a great light
on the far horizon, which streamed forth, as he knew, from the throne
of Almighty God.

Choking, with the harsh rattle in his throat, he awoke to the actual
and immediate--to the familiar square room and its crimson furnishings,
to Katherine's sweet, pale face and the touch of her caressing fingers,
to some one standing beside her, whom he did not immediately recognise.
It was Roger--Roger worn with watching, grown curiously older. But a
certain exhilaration, born of that strange ride, remained by Richard
Calmady. Both ache of body a