Matching the silence within was the stillness out of doors. An immense oak tree stood just outside the windows. It was a perpetual reminder of vanished woods; and when a windstorm tossed and twisted it, the straining and grinding of the fibres were like struggles and outcries for the wild life of old. This afternoon it brooded motionless, an image of forest reflection. Once a small black-and-white sapsucker, circling the trunk and peering into the crevices of the bark on a level with the windows, uttered minute notes which penetrated into the room like steel darts of sound. A snowbird alighted on the window-sill, glanced familiarly in at the man, and shot up its crest; but disappointed perhaps that it was not noticed, quoted its resigned gray phrase--a phrase it had made for itself to accompany the score of gray whiter--and flitted on billowy wings to a juniper at the corner of the house, its turret against the long javelins of the North. Amid the stillness of Nature outside and the house-silence of a love guarding him within, the man worked on. A little clock ticked independently on the old-fashioned Parian marble mantelpiece. Prints were propped against its sides and face, illustrating the use of trees about ancient tombs and temples. Out of this photographic grove of dead things the uncaring clock threw out upon the air a living three--the fateful three that had been measured for each tomb and temple in its own land and time. A knock, regretful but positive, was heard, and the door opening into the hall was quietly pushed open. A glow lit up the student’s face though he did not stop writing; and his voice, while it gave a welcome, unconsciously expressed regret at being disturbed: “Come in.” “I am in!” He lifted his heavy figure with instant courtesy--rather obsolete now--and bowing to one side, sat down again. “So I see,” he said, dipping his pen into his ink. “Since you did not turn around, you would better have said ‘So I hear.’ It is three o’clock.” “So I hear.” “You said you would be ready.” “I am ready.” “You said you would be done.” “I am done--nearly done.” “How nearly?” “By to-morrow--to-morrow afternoon before dark. I have reached the end, but now it is hard to stop, hard to let go.” His tone gave first place, primary consideration, to his work. The silence in the room suddenly became charged. When the voice was heard again, there was constraint in it: “There is something to be done this afternoon before dark, something I have a share in. Having a share, I am interested. Being interested, I am prompt. Being prompt, I am here.” He waved his hand over the written sheets before him--those cold Alps of learning; and asked reproachfully: “Are you not interested in all this, O you of little faith?” “How can I say, O me of little knowledge!”