“What became of the woman who threw herself away for love: did she find no one at last to weep at the feet of, no one who would free her soul from her body?”
“What became of the man who was false: did he ever find a Power that could make him true?”
“What became of the man who threw himself away in being true: did any Power ever make good to him his ruin?”
“The young soldier who poured out his life’s blood for his country: was he never to have any country?”
On the long road of the ages here and there they loitered with their thoughts:
“But he did fill the world with a great light of himself, with the splendor of what he was.”
“And yet it was but half his life, half his glory. He forever dwelt in less than half of the light of his race: the rest he himself put out yet never knew the darkness it left him in. More than half his light he put out in neglected childhood and in youth slain on the battlefield.”
“All the greatest names up and down the terrible field of his history—there were just as many that he threw away: he dwelt in half the light of his race.”
If there had been a clock to measure the hour it must now have been near midnight as it was reckoned in old human times. Suddenly the fir below spoke out hopefully: