"Four years passed, and at last the boy had won. In a month he would pass from the prairie to university life. He had no home, few friends--who spoke; those who did not were safely packed at the bottom of his trunk. His going from the little town would excite no more comment than had his coming. He was all ready, and for the first time in his life set apart a month--the last--as a vacation. He felt positively gay. He had fought a hard fight--and had won. He saw the dawning of a great light--saw the future as a battle-ground where he would fight; not as he was then, but fully equipped for the struggle.... But no matter what air-castles he built; they were such as young men will build to the end of time." The speaker's voice lowered--stopped. He looked straight out over the prairie, his eyes glistening. "If so far the boy's life had been an inferno, he was to be repaid. The girl--she of the brown eyes--was home once more, and they met again as members of a camping party." He half-turned in his seat to look at her, but she sat with face averted, so quiet, so motionless, that he wondered if she heard. "Are you listening?" he asked. "Listening!" Her voice carried conviction, so the lad continued. "For a fortnight he lived a dream--and that dream was Paradise. He forgot the past, ignored the future, and lived solely for the moment--with the joy of Nature's own child. It was the pure love of the idealist and the dreamer--it was divine. "Then came the reaction. One day he awoke--saw things as they were--saw again the satire of Fate. At the very time he left for college, she returned--a graduate. She was young, beautiful, accomplished. He was a mere farmhand, without money or education, homeless, obscure. The thought was maddening, and one day he suddenly disappeared from camp. He didn't say good-bye to any one; he felt he had no apology that he could offer. But he had to go, for he felt the necessity for work, longed for it, as a drunkard longs for liquor." "Oh!" The exclamation came from the lips of the girl beside him. "I--we--all wondered why--." "Well, that was why. "He fell in with a threshing-crew, and asked to work for his board. They thought him queer, but accepted his offer. For two days he stayed with them, doing the work of two men. It seemed as if he couldn't do enough--he couldn't become tired. He wanted to think it all out, and he couldn't with the fever in his blood. "At night he couldn't sleep--Nature was pitiless. He would walk the road for miles until morning.