"Do you mean that if you go now you will stay?"
"I am not sure. The future must take care of itself."
"Your mother would be glad if your decision finally came to that."
"Yes. And I should be glad. But this time I shall not go for my mother's sake alone. Something deeper is drawing me. I can't quite analyze it. It is a call"—he laughed a little—"such as men describe who enter the ministry,—an irresistible impulse, as if I were to find something there that I had lost in the city."
She held out her hand to him. "Do you know the name I had for you when you were at Crossroads?"
"No."
"I called you St. Michael—because it always seemed to me that you carried a sword."
He tightened his grip on the little hand. "Some day I shall hope to justify the name; I don't deserve it now."
Her eyes came up to him. "You'll fight to win," she said, softly.
He did not want to let her go. But there was no other way. But when she had joined the others on the terrace he made a wide detour of the garden, and wandered down to the river.