Thus supported she was saved from the uttermost extremity of the collapse that came upon her when fondly he kissed her as she lay in bed, left her, returned to press her to him again.--"Think of it as a visit, Aunt Maggie, only that. Just a visit to give these idle whacking great hands something to do"--and then was gone. One or two--up thus early--who saw him go by and came to Aunt Maggie when it was noised that he had gone away, told her how stern he looked--how strange. Miss Purdie, early in her garden, had noticed it. "Oh, Miss Oxford, if I had _known_! Oh, to _think_ he was going when I saw him! Oh, and I _suspected_ something was wrong. There was _something_ in his face I had _never_ seen there before. I thought to myself 'Now _what_ is the matter with you, I wonder?' And I _stood_ and _looked_ after him, and dropped one of my garden gloves and never _knew_ I had lost it until I was back in the house and found I had only _one_ to take off. Oh, when I _think_ of all his sweet ways and his handsome face...." II Stern he looked and strange, and stern his thoughts and difficult. His plans ran to coming up with Japhra on the Dorchester Road and joining him. Beyond?--he could supply nothing beyond. His urgent desire went to being away from home, and for his own respect and for his mind's ease working to earn his food. Beyond?--he could see nothing beyond. His thoughts and all his heart and all his being went to his Dora, to her exquisite beauty, to the rapture of their kiss, to the divine ecstasy of her whisper, "I shall always love you;" beyond?--black, black beyond, most utter black, most utter hopeless; emptiness most utter, mock most shrill, most sharp. He laughed, poor boy; and "Fool! Fool!" cried, "abject fool!" He groaned, poor boy, and "Dora! Dora!" cried, "oh! Dora!" He set his teeth, poor boy, and braced his strength; threw up his chin and clenched a fist, and "Somehow! Somehow!" cried, "Somehow!" Most to be pitied then, poor boy, as old friend wind, in whose path now he came, knew and mocked, or might have known and surely mocked--buffeting him with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" tossing his "Somehow! Somehow!" from his lips and chasing it and tearing it as old friend wind had heard resolves and mocked and tossed and chased and torn them from end to end along its course since mankind first resolving came. But he was helped by that strong "Somehow!" as by resolve mankind--and youth the most of all--is ever helped. More stern, not less, it made him, but launched a shaft of light into the darkness of that Beyond--showing the adventure, not the desert there; inspiring him that somehow stuff was to be found there that somehow he would wrest to himself, somehow shape and beat to win him fulfilment of all his hopes.