It was Dick's sanctuary, where, according to family tradition, he was
supposed to be immune from domestic attacks. Anyone, it is true, could
open the door and worry him from the threshold, but no one entered
without his invitation. Here he was master. Here he spent solitary hours
dreaming dreams, wrestling with devils, tying trout-flies, making up
medicines for his dogs, and polishing and arranging and rearranging his
armour and weapons. Until the furies got hold of him he was a simple
soul, content with simple things. The happiest times of his life had
been passed here among the inanimate objects which he loved, and here he
was now spending the hours of his greatest agony.

The words he had just heard from Austin rang like a crazy, deafening
chime through his ears. He sat in one of the old leather chairs,
gripping his coarse hair. It was unthinkable, and yet it was true.
Viviette had told Austin the thing that glowed sacred at the bottom of
his soul. The scene danced vividly before his eyes: the two bright
creatures making a mock of him and his love, laughing merrily at the
trick they had played him, pitying him contemptuously. There was a flame
at his heart, a burning lump in his throat. Mechanically he drew from a
little cupboard near by a bottle of whiskey, a syphon, and a glass. The
drink he mixed and swallowed contained little soda. It increased the
fire in his heart and throat. He paced the long room in crazy
indignation. Every nerve in his body quivered with a sense of
unforgivable insult and deadly outrage. Austin's face loomed before him
like that of a mocking devil. He had hell in his throat, and again he
tossed down a dose of whiskey, and threw himself into the arm-chair. The
daily paper lay on a stool at his hand. He took it up and tried to read,
but the print swam into thin, black smudges. He dashed the paper to the
ground, and gave himself up to his madness.