He had been telling himself that he was loyal, and now he realized
that he was drifting like the lotus-eaters. Things that had gripped his
soul were becoming myths. Nothing in his life was honest--he had become
as they had prophesied, a derelict. In that thorn-choked graveyard lay
the crude man whose knotted hand had rested on his head just before
death stiffened it bestowing a mission.

"I hain't fergot ye, Pap." The words rang in his ears with the agony
of a repudiated vow.

He rose and paced the floor, with teeth and hands clenched, and the
sweat standing out on his forehead. His advisers had of late been
urging him to go to Paris He had refused, and his unconfessed reason
had been that in Paris he could not answer a sudden call. He would go
back to them now, and compel them to admit his leadership.

Then, his eyes fell on the unfinished portrait of Adrienne. The face
gazed at him with its grave sweetness; its fragrant subtlety and its
fine-grained delicacy. Her pictured lips were silently arguing for the
life he had found among strangers, and her victory would have been an
easy one, but for the fact that just now his conscience seemed to be on
the other side. Samson's civilization was two years old--a thin veneer
over a century of feudalism--and now the century was thundering its
call of blood bondage. But, as the man struggled over the dilemma, the
pendulum swung back. The hundred years had left, also, a heritage of
quickness and bitterness to resent injury and injustice. His own people
had cast him out. They had branded him as the deserter; they felt no
need of him or his counsel. Very well, let them have it so. His problem
had been settled for him. His Gordian knot was cut.