CHAPTER XV.
PRELUDE TO A JOURNEY 1 He had a bath, changed his clothes, and sitting before his fire waited.
As he looked around his room he knew that he was leaving it for ever.
What ever might be the issue of his conversation with Rupert, he knew that that at any rate was true; he would never return here again--or he would not return until he had worked out his duty.

He looked about him regretfully; he had grown very fond of that room and the things in it--the shape of it, the books, the blue bowls, the bright fire, "Aegidius" (but he would take "Aegidius" with him).

He looked last at the photograph of his father, the rocky eyes, the flowing beard, the massive shoulders.
It was back to him that he was going, and he would walk all the way.
Walking alone he would listen, he would watch, he would wait, and then, in that great silence, he would be told what he must do.
In the pleasant crackle of the fire, in the shaded light of the lamp, in the starlit silence of the College Courts, there seemed such safety; in his heart there was such happiness; in that moment of waiting for Rupert Craven to come he learnt once and for all that, in very _truth_, there is no gift, no reward, no joy that can equal "the Peace of God," nor is there any temporal danger, disease or agony that can threaten its power.
As the last notes of the clock in Outer Court striking five died away Rupert Craven came in.

If he had seemed tired and worn-out before, now the overwhelming impression that he gave was of an unhappiness from which he seemed to have no outlet.

He was young enough to be tormented by the determination to do the right thing; he was young enough to give his whole devotion to his sister; he was young enough to admire, against all determination, Olva's presence and prowess and silence; he was young enough to be haunted, night and day, by the terrors of his imagination; he was young enough to be amazed at finding the world a place of Life and Death; he was young enough finally to be staggered that he personally should be drawn into the struggle.
But now, just now, as he stood in the doorway, he was simply tired, tired out.