In Ottalie's old home, a month later, he saw his way. Leslie, Lionel, and himself sat together in the twilight, talking of her. Roger was deeply moved by a sense of her presence there. He leaned forward to them and spoke earnestly, asking them to join hands in building some memorial to her. "She was like a new spirit coming to the world," he said. "Like the new spirit. We ought to bring that new spirit into the world. Let us form a brotherhood of three to do that. We are three untrained enthusiasts. Let us prepare an organisation for the enthusiasts who come after us. Let us build up an interest in the new hygiene and the new science; in all that is cleanly and fearless. We could start a little school and laboratory together, and run a monthly paper preaching our tenets. All the ills of modern life come from dirt and sentiment, and the cowardice which both imply. If we stand together and attack those ills, year in and year out, we shall get rid of them. Little by little, if one stands at a street corner, the crowd gathers."
"Yes," said Leslie. "And you think dirt and sentiment the bad things? Well, perhaps you're right. They're both due to a want of order in the mind. What do you think, Lionel?"
"I?" said Lionel. "I say, certainly. We three are living in a most wonderful time. The world is just coming to see that science is not a substitute for religion, but religion of a very deep and austere kind. We are seeing only the beginning of it."
They settled a plan of action together.
Roger went out into the garden, and down the hill, thinking of the crusade against the weariness and filth of cities. There was an afterglow upon the hills. It fell with a ruddy glare on the window of his dream. It thrilled him. The light would fall there long after the house had fallen. It had lighted Ottalie. It had burned upon the pane when Ottalie's mother stood there. Nature was enduring; Nature the imperfect; Nature the enemy, which blighted the rose and spread the weed. Thinking of the woman who had waited for him there in his vision, he prayed that her influence in him might help to bring to earth that promised life, in which man, curbing Nature to his use, would assert a new law and rule like a king, where now, even in his strength, he walks sentenced, a prey to all things baser.
THE END
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Captain Margaret