Happiness and peace were not to be won by flight. In his soldiering he had never feared bodily injury, and at times when he had speculated as to the existence of a soul he had decided that if he possessed such a thing he would not suffer it to play the coward. But this unexpected meeting at the Hardens’, which was likely to be repeated if he continued his visits to the house, had shaken his nerve more than he liked to believe possible. Millicent evidently admired Mills, sympathized with him in his loneliness, was flattered perhaps by his visits to her home in search of solace and cheer, or whatever it was Mills sought. The sky was overcast and a keen autumn wind whipped the overhanging maples as Bruce strode homeward with head bent, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He hummed and whistled phrases of the Parsifal, with his thoughts playing about Millicent’s head as she had sat at the organ with the knight keeping watch above her. After all, it was through beautiful things, man-made and God-made, as his mother had taught him, that life found its highest realizations. In this idea there was an infinite stimulus. Millicent had found for herself this clue to happiness and was a radiant proof of its efficacy. It had been a privilege to see her in her own house, to enjoy contact with her questioning, meditative mind, and to lose himself in her entrancing music. The street was deserted and only a few of the houses he passed showed lights. Bruce experienced again, as often in his night tramps during the year of his exile, a happy sense of isolation. He was so completely absorbed in his thoughts that he was unaware of the propinquity of another pedestrian who was slowly approaching as though as unheedful as he of the driving wind and the first fitful patter of rain. They passed so close that their arms touched. Both turned, staring blankly in the light of the street lamps, and muttered confused apologies. “Oh, Storrs!” Franklin Mills exclaimed, bending his head against the wind. “Sorry to have bumped into you, sir,” Bruce replied, and feeling that nothing more was required of him, he was about to go on, but Mills said quickly: “We’re in for a hard rain. Come back to my house--it’s only half a dozen blocks--and I’ll send you home.” There was something of kindly peremptoriness in his tone, and Bruce, at a loss for words with which to refuse, followed, thinking that he would walk a block to meet the demands of courtesy and turn back. Mills, forging ahead rapidly, complained good-naturedly of the weather. “I frequently prowl around at night,” he explained; “I sleep better afterwards.” “I like a night walk myself,” Bruce replied. “Not afraid of hold-ups? I was relieved to find it was you I ran into. My daughter says I’m bound to get sandbagged some night.”