‘My father liked to have me here ... I have not been at school a year yet ... but all those other years before I went seem very far away. I can look back at the past as if it had only been a single hour. Everything slips together into one golden point.... I wonder if, when a man is dying, it is like that――if, when he looks back, all his life gathers together into one long, long day――if all seems but a summer day――yesterday between sunrise and sunset――――’ VIII Gradually, as he rowed, the familiar landmarks grew smaller and the scene widened out, while the sprinkling of little cottages slid closer together. Beyond these, the spire of the church rose like a slender thread into the dark blue sky. Brocklehurst’s eyes rested upon his face, but he appeared to be quite unconscious of this, his own dark grey eyes fixed on some point in the remote. At length he drew in his oars. How far away the land seemed! All around, sea――sea unspotted by a single sail――sea stretching from world to world. He lay back in the bow of the boat, and for a time appeared to have fallen into one of those reveries his companion knew so well. And Brocklehurst began to murmur to himself while he dabbled his hand in the water. ‘What?――What do you say?’ At the sound of his friend’s voice breaking through the fine meshes of his dream, Graham roused himself and made a movement to sit up. Brocklehurst smiled. ‘Nothing――nothing. I was only talking to myself.’ Graham looked at him. ‘Doesn’t it seem as if we were quite out of the world here, Harold? We shall never be more alone together than we are now. I can hardly remember when we came.... Do you think we shall ever go back?’ ‘Perhaps the sea round Ireland is haunted, like the sea of the Ancient Mariner.’ ‘And the sea across which Odysseus sailed. Surely almost every place is haunted by this time. If we rowed on a little further we might come to Circé’s Island, or to the land of the Lotus-eaters, or to the home of Nausicaa.’ And even while he spoke they seemed to drift into a stiller air――or was it his fancy? His thoughts seemed to be borne into his mind from somewhere far away, and the faint lapping of the water against the boat recalled to him his dream. ‘Last night I went back there, Harold――I found the old way.... Shall I tell you?... You remember the curious dream that filled up so much of my life here.... I think it must be beginning to open out again.’ ‘You mean about the boy whom you used to fancy as being in some way connected with me?’ Graham met his eyes. ‘Are you quite sure he wasn’t?’ he asked softly. ‘You must tell me, because just now, somehow, I am not quite certain myself.’ ‘What has changed you, then? You used, you know, to be sufficiently sure.... Do you remember the day I found you out in the fields?’ ‘The day you came to me?... You came when I called.’ ‘Well, you were very certain then, weren’t you?’ He laughed a little at the other boy’s gravity.