His friendship for Shere Ali had grown into a greater and a deeper force than he had ever imagined it until this moment to be.

He stopped with a sense of weariness and disillusionment, and then walked on again.

The Road would never again be quite the bright, inspiring thing which it had been.

The dream had a shadow upon it.

In the Eton and Oxford days he had given and given and given so much of himself to Shere Ali that he could not now lightly and easily lose him altogether out of his life.