woods; purple finches winged their flight here and there. A veery swung near inquisitively. Placidly he let himself drift away out on the silence that was broken only by woodland sounds. He half forgot the path for which he had searched. After all, what matter? . . .
Presently something seemed playing with his consciousness and he idly turned his head to see if by chance someone had crept near unobserved and unheard. No one was visible; only the gray-brown tree trunks and swaying branches and slender moosewood and out-cropping rocks were about him. Yet after a moment of listening, a voice—or rather a mere consciousness of words—seemed to sift into his ears, and the words were a long-forgotten fragment of an old Latin sentence. He found himself haltingly repeating a line he had not thought of since his schoolhood days.
"Perge, qua via ducat." "Go on, where the way will lead you."
