above the rustic details of his daily life. There were days even
when he took a positive pleasure in the degree of his abasement,
when but for his blind mother he would have gone dirty, spoken in
dialect, and eaten with the hounds. What he dreaded most now were
the rare moments of illumination in which he beheld his
degradation by a blaze of light--moments such as this when he
seemed to stand alone upon the edge of the world, with the devil
awaiting him when he should turn at last. Years ago he had
escaped these periods by strong physical exertion, working
sometimes in the fields until he dropped upon the earth and lay
like a log for hours. Later, he had yielded to drink when the
darkness closed over him, and upon several occasions he had sat
all night with a bottle of whisky in Tom Spade's store. Both
methods he felt now to be ineffectual; fatigue could not deaden
nor could whisky drown the bitterness of his soul. One thing
remained, and that was to glut his hatred until it should lie
quiet like a gorged beast.

Steps sounded all at once upon the staircase, and after a moment
the door opened and Cynthia entered.

"Did you see Fletcher's boy, Christopher?" she asked. "His
grandfather was over here looking for him."

"Fletcher over here? Well, of all the impudence!"

"He was very uneasy, but he stopped long enough to ask me to
persuade you to part with the farm. He'd give three thousand
dollars down for it, he said."