He was afraid he could not make it half way up the street.

But he kept on.
The torture now was more a mingled rapture and grief than the physical protest of his racked body.

At last he saw the modest little house--and then he stood at the gate, quivering.

Home! A light in the window of his old room! A terrible and tremendous storm of feeling forced him to lean on the gate.

How many endless hours had the pictured memory of that house haunted him?
There was the beloved room where he had lived and slept and read, and cherished over his books and over his compositions a secret hope and ambition to make of himself an author.