that comes of joy, unbent the old man's stiffened joints.
He renewed his youth at every mile. He ran like a lapwing.
When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the plains, he broke
into old song of the "bloom-in' gy-ar-ding" and the "jolly swain,"
and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration
born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible
last note. His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture
when he caught the well-known gleam of the white birches.
He turned into the familiar path, boy's blood thumping in old
man's veins. The past week had been a dreadful dream.
A few steps more and he would be within sight,
within touch of home,--home at last! No--what was wrong?
He must have gone beyond it, in his reckless haste!
Strange that he could have forgotten the beloved spot!
Can lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window?
Can child lose the path to mother's knee?

He turned,--ran hither and thither, like one distraught.
A nameless dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his
warm blood, paralyzing the activity of the moment before.
At last, with a sob like that of a frightened child
who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness,
he darted back to the white birches and started anew.
This time he trusted to blind instinct; his feet knew the path,
and, left to themselves, they took him through the tangle
of dry bushes straight to his--

It had vanished!

Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,--nothing but ashes!