As the bare-footed beggar passed away into the traffic, far from the circle of the curious, before they could impede him, he was able to discern that his thin hands had been lacerated by the reins during the struggle he had waged with the horse. The blood was flowing freely from his torn fingers, but at the sight of it a flush of gladness overspread his cheeks.
“I thank thee, Mighty One,” he said, “that thou hast given the strength to my right hand.”
It was with bruised and numbed feet that the returned wayfarer came at last to the threshold of the little room.
The aged man, his father, gave a cry of joy when he beheld the apparition that had entered, for, dim as his eyes were, he knew it for the form of one.
The old and the young man embraced one another.
“I have been desolate, Achilles,” said the old man with the plaintiveness of age; “I have been desolate. But I knew, O Achilles, that thou wouldst return.”
A brave fire was burning upon the hearth, the candles, also, were bright of lustre in the little room.
The young man stretched his wounded hands to the warmth, and then, with a kind of composed passion, he spread them out before his father.
“Dost thou see, my father?” he said. “Earth, my mother, has given the strength to my right hand. I think now, my father, I shall be among the English authors.”
As he spoke the secret and beautiful smile crept across his wan lips.