Something struggled in his throat for utterance,--it seemed ages since he had last seen this little abode of peace and sweet content, and a curious impression was in his mind of having left one identity here to take up another less pleasing one elsewhere.

A deep, unspeakable gratitude overwhelmed him,--he felt to the full the sympathetic environment of love,--that indescribable sense of security which satisfies the heart when it knows it is "dear to some one else." "If I be dear to some one else, Then I should be to myself more dear." For there is nothing in the whole strange symphony of human life, with its concordances and dissonances, that strikes out such a chord of perfect music as the consciousness of love.

To feel that there is one at least in the world to whom you are more dear than to any other living being, is the very centralisation of life and the mainspring of action.
For that one you will work and plan,--for that one you will seek to be noble and above the average in your motives and character--for that one you will, despite a multitude of drawbacks, agree to live.

But without this melodious note in the chorus all the singing is in vain.
Led to his accustomed chair by the hearth, Helmsley sank into it restfully, and closed his eyes.

He was so thoroughly tired out mentally and physically with the strain he had put upon himself in undertaking his journey, as well as in getting through the business he had set out to do, that he was only conscious of a great desire to sleep.