Driving sleet, armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the black reef and the charging breakers,--it is well to dash one's force against the force of these, and to die after fighting.

But in this cursed land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced again at Haward.

"I did not know that you were here," he said.

"Saunderson told me that you were going to Westover." "I was,--I am," answered Haward briefly.

Presently he roused himself from the brown study into which he had fallen.
"'Tis the heat, as you say.