This morning, however, she was not tormented with a string of questions. Northcote was silent, gloomy, and haggard; something appeared to be preying on his mind. The remorse he had shown for having failed to ask how her grandchild was seemed strange to her indeed, for until the previous day he had always stood in her mind as a member of the inaccessible classes. Something had appeared to happen to him by which, in a few short hours, the tenor and current of his life had been changed. There was a terrible excitement burning now under his pale skin; his eyes were restless, his fingers were twitching, and he drank cup after cup of the hot tea as though he were consumed with an intolerable thirst. When he had finished his breakfast he took his wig and gown out of a cupboard, and placed them together with his brief in a small black bag. He was on the point of starting for the court, when through the open door he could hear footsteps on the stairs. Some one was coming up to the fourth story, an incident so rare in the experience of its occupant as always to be rendered memorable. In an instant the jovial outline of the solicitor presented itself to his imagination. With an agitation that was indescribable he foresaw that he was not to be allowed to take the brief into court after all. Instead of Mr. Whitcomb, however, his visitor proved to be a boy with a telegram. He tore it out of its envelope. The contents were contained in three words: “Life, my son.” They were from his mother. With this omen in his heart he set forth. A welcome change had taken place in the weather. The air had become sharp and dry; already misty beams were stealing out from the December sun. The press in the streets was immense, but he brushed through it with the elevating consciousness that he was overcoming a real obstacle. In his every fibre was the breath of contest, the joy of battle. His mother’s words, the faint beams of the new day, the rattle of the traffic, all conspired to endow him with a ruthless determination. If it was to be that defeat and confusion should overtake him, at least he would not go out to greet them half-way. Once and for all he had put off those fears and misgivings that had tormented him. A great commander storming an inaccessible position does not pause to estimate the cost; he does not pause to contemplate the inevitability of disaster. He, too, would show himself of this quality: a great commander of his lurid and revolted imagination in the teeth of frightful odds.