Outside, through one light pane of glass, Richard could see the snow thick on the white stone balustrade. How silently and swiftly it must have fallen! When he came in there were only a few flakes. Eager to be off, he ran down the gallery. But Dan, evading his master’s hand with a whine, leapt forward again, scenting eagerly, and then scratched at the door with a low whine of terror. Something had fallen in the corridor beyond the gallery, something heavy and dark. Something that pressed against the door that Richard strove to open, at first gently, then with a sudden sickening dread that taxed his self-control. As the door gave way at last, it pressed the unknown obstacle back with it slowly—the unknown obstacle at the sight of which the boy fell on his knees with a cry. For it was a woman’s figure—his mother’s—which lay prone in the moonlight, with thin arms stretched towards him, giving way too late to the longing they had crushed for years. Face to face with death for the second time, Richard found himself more wondering than pitiful, more perplexed than sad. How swiftly God’s arrows struck—how unerringly! The terrified, staring eyes were fixed in their last challenge of the Almighty Power. Even in death there was no peace. The hand—cold as of old—fell from his grasp. He tried to close the dreadful eyes, but failed; tried once again, and failed, and then rose, panting. His cry had awakened his old nurse. She came to him feebly, candle in hand, with Dan sniffing at her ankles. At sight of his master the dog ran forward, and then, as if aware of mourning, crouched quietly on the floor beside the dead. And Richard, looking down upon his mother, and hearing Nurse Ailsa’s lamentation shrill out of the silence, realized that this was indeed the end of the old hampering life, that he had put away "childish things" once and for all. *PART II* *THE SPUR* "He had stamped with steady hand God’s arrow-mark Of dedication to the human need; He thought it should be so, too, with his love. He, passionately loving, would bring down His love, his life, his best (because the best), His bride of dreams, who walked so still and high Through flowery poems as through meadow-grass, The dust of golden lilies on her feet, That she should walk beside him on the rocks, In all that clang, and hewing out of men, And help the work of help which was his life, And prove he kept back nothing—not his soul." E. B. BROWNING. *CHAPTER I* "You and I are the only mortals that I know of who ever found a way to each other’s inner being by the touch of the hands."—GEORGE DU MAURIER.