She almost sneered at the suggestion. And this sneer rankled. He telegraphed his friend, at a little freshwater college, and Samuel telegraphed back: "Come." That day he drew his money from the bank, and got his tickets for the midnight sleeper. And he did all this with perfect cruelty.... But now the time had come to go, and things were different. An autumn wind was blowing out of the park, doubtless carrying seeds and dead leaves, and gusting down the street, blowing about the sparkling lamps, eddying in the area-ways, rapping in passing on the loose windows.... The lights in the houses were all warm, because you saw only the glowing yellow shades: Third Avenue was lit up and down with shop-windows, and people were doing late marketing. It was a night when nothing seemed so sweet, or sane, or comfortable, as a soft-lighted room, and a family sitting together. Soft voices, familiarity, warm intimacy, the feeling of security and ease, the unspoken welling of love and understanding: these belonged to such a night, when the whole world seemed dying and there was only man to keep the fires burning against death. And so, out of its tomb, the little child in Paul stepped out again, beautiful and sweet with love and longing. And this little child said to him: "Sacrifice--surrender--let the hard heart melt with pity.... There is no freedom except in love, which gives all." For a moment Paul's vivid imagination, which presented everything to him like works of dramatic art, pictured himself going down the steps, as once he had done, creeping to his mother's bed, flinging himself down, sobbing and moaning, "Forgive me. Forgive me." But just then he heard the stairs creak and thought that his eldest sister was coming up to question him. His heart began a frightened throbbing: he shook with a guilty fear, and at once he saved himself with a bitter resurgence of cruel anger. He hated his sister, he told himself, with a livid hatred. She always sided with his mother. She was bossy and smart and high and mighty. He knew what he would do. He jumped up, went to the door, and locked it. So--she could beat her head on the door, for all he cared! He packed. He got out his valise, and filled it with his necessaries. He would let the rest go: the books, the old clothes. He was going to start life all over again He was going to wipe out the past.... When he was finished, he anxiously opened his pocket-book to see if the tickets were safe. He looked at them. It was now ten o'clock. Two hours--and then the long train would pull out, and he would be gone.... To-morrow morning they'd come downstairs. His sister probably would sit at the foot of the table, instead of himself. The table would seem small with himself gone. Perhaps the house would seem a little empty. Automatically they would wait for the click of his key in the front door lock at seven in the evening. He would not come home at all....