Always, while his soul
beat against the bars, his body staggered along the streets, a thing
helpless, unguided.
There is an hour before dawn when tired men and women die, and with
the coming of this hour his spirit found a strange release from
pain. Once more he realised that he was a man, and, bruised and
weary as he was, he tried to collect the lost threads of reason,
which the night had torn from him. Facing him he saw a vast building
dimly outlined against the darkness, and in some way it served to
touch a faint memory in his dying brain. For a while he wandered
amongst the shadows, and then he knew that it was the keep of
a castle, his castle, and that high up where a window shone upon the
night a girl was waiting for him, a girl with a face of pearls and
roses. Presently she came to the window and looked out, dressed all
in white for her love's sake. He stood up in his armour and flashed
his sword towards the envying stars.
"It is I, my love!" he cried. "I am here."
And there, before the dawn had made the shadows of the Law Courts
grey, they found him; bruised and muddy and daubed with blood,
without the sword and spurs of his honour, lacking the scented token
of his love. A thing in no way tragic, for here was no misfortune,
but merely the conclusion of Nature's remorseless logic. For century
after century those of his name had lived, sheltered by the prowess
of their ancestors from the trivial hardships and afflictions that
make us men.
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