After the meal he followed in the steps of the master wherever he went, until the hour came to re-enter the school-room to renew the tasks of the day. Many were the fierce and scornful eyes that were directed upon him as again he took his seat at the master’s table; yet of these he was not conscious, for he had no knowledge of what was happening about him. About the hour the shadows of the dismal November afternoon grew so oppressive that it became necessary to light the gas, he saw the form of his father in the door. He gave a little convulsed cry, threw his arms round his father’s neck, and buried his face in his coat. His father and the aged master looked at one another without saying anything. The boy and his father journeyed home on the top of an omnibus. On another occasion such a proceeding would have filled him with a high sense of adventure, but now all the life seemed to have passed out of him. The horses and carts, their drivers, the shouting newsboys, the seething crowds on the pavements, the flaring lights of the shops had nothing to communicate. Yet, when he found himself again in the little room, which he had left only a few brief hours, the sudden joy in recovering that which he had felt to be lost for ever amounted almost to delirium. It soon passed. It was followed by deep dejection, and a sense of strange despair. The hours of the long evening went very slowly. The ticking of the clock had never seemed so loud and so deliberate. A feeling of lassitude at last began to creep upon him, so that he leant his arms on the table, and pressed his closed eyes upon them. Yet he was not in the least weary, and felt no desire for sleep. His father asked no questions in regard to the doings of the day. At eight o’clock his father put up the shutters of the shop. It was his habit to sit all day amid the books waiting for customers who seldom came. That day not one had crossed the threshold. When the hour arrived at which it was usual for the boy to go to bed, he lighted his candle in a dull and mechanical way. “I suppose, my father,” he said, “heroes do not crave for death?” “Yes, Achilles,” said his father, “death is a guerdon they do not seek.” His father accompanied him up the stairs as was his invariable custom during the winter evenings, for he had not the courage to enter a dark room alone. When the boy had sought sanctuary in his cold bed, his father left him with the light burning at its fullest.