The tremendous issues of existence with which for five months he had been grappling had wiped out from his consciousness, almost from his memory, the first enthralling kiss of another woman. Caked with mud, deafened by the roar of shells, sleeping in the earth of his trench, an intimate of blood and death day after day, he had learned that Lucilla had been but an _ignis fatuus_ leading him astray from the essential meaning of his life. He knew, as he lay wounded beneath the hell of machine-gun fire between the trenches that there was only one sweet, steadfast soul in the world who called him to the accomplishment of his being. When, in the abandonment of her joy and grief his lips met the soft, quivering mouth of Félise, care, like a garment, fell from him. He whispered: “You have a great heart. I’ve not deserved this. But you’re the only thing that matters to me in the world.” Félise was content. She knew that the war had swept his soul clean of false gods. Out of that furnace nothing but Truth could come. And so Martin returned for ever to the land of his adoption, which on the morrow was to take him after its generous and expansive way as a hero to its bosom. The Englishman who had given a limb for Périgord was to be held in high honour for the rest of his days. He was a man now who had passed through most human experiences. A man of fine honour, of courage tested in a thousand ways, of stiffened will, of high ideals. The life that lay before him was far dearer than any other he could have chosen. For it matters not so much the life one leads as the knowledge of the perfect way to live it. And that knowledge, based on wisdom, had Martin achieved. He knew that if the glittering prizes of the earth are locked away behind golden bars opening but to golden keys, there are others far more precious lying to the hand of him who will but seek them in the folds of the familiar hills. The five sat down to dinner that evening in the empty _salle-à-manger_; for not a guest, even the most decrepit commercial traveller, was staying at the hotel. Yet never had they met at a happier meal. Félise cut up Martin’s food as though it had been blessed bread. In the middle of it Fortinbras poured out half a glass of wine. “My children,” said he, “I am going to break through the habit of years. This old wine of Burgundy is too generous to betray me on an occasion so beautiful and so solemn. I drink to your happiness.” “But to whom do Martin and I owe our happiness?” cried Corinna, with a flush on her cheek, and a glistening in her blue eyes. “It is to you—from the first to last to you, _Marchand de Bonheur_!” “My God! Yes,” said Martin, extending his one arm to Fortinbras.