The Faust-like vision began to dance before his eyes again, but with a witchery now which was uncanny. The calm of waiting had brought him enough strength of control to feel the presence of the cloven hoof in it all. The temptation was more urgent, strenuous than ever, but he was conscious of a deeper, more dogged spirit of resistance within him than ever, as well. There was no renewal of the savage, chaotic war of emotions under which he had suffered at the outset, groaning in the self-infliction of purposeless pain. This was a definite, almost scientific, struggle between two distinct forces, and though they fought their battle with all manner of sophistical weapons, and employed feints, pretended retreats and false advances in highest strategical form, he was never deceived for a moment as to which was the bad and which the good. The issue forced itself upon him, finally, with a demand for decision which was imperative. He could stay no longer in his room. There was neither sleep nor rest of any kind there for him. He went to the door, and opened it. Through the blackness he could see a faint vertical line of light at the front end of the low hall, as of a lamp burning, and a door left ajar. The yellow ray gleamed as he looked at it, and seemed to wave itself in fascinating motions of enticement. He stood for a moment undecided, all his impulses strongly swaying towards the temptation, all his resisting reasons growing weaker in their obstruction, and some even turning coward, and whispering, as they laid down their arms, “After all, youth has its rights.” Then he squared his shoulders, with the old gesture of resolution, and walked steadily away from the line of light, down the stairs, and out of the door, bareheaded under the stars. He had walked for a long, long time, before he became conscious that he had left his hat behind. The night air was exceptionally mild for the season, but it grew cool enough to bring this fact to his notice. As he put his hand to his head, and stopped short at the discovery, his whole mind seemed to clarify itself. He had been walking aimlessly, almost unconsciously--it must have been for much more than an hour. In a vague way, he knew where his steps had led him. He had walked through the orchard to his mother’s grave, and stood for some time by the brier-clad wall and fence which surrounded it, thinking of his boyhood, and of her. Then he had struck across through Sir Thomas’s pasture, to the main road; thence by the way of the school-house, and skirting the hill, to the Burfield road, at the farthermost end of the line of poplars.