ugh to
ward off the inimical forces everywhere pressing upon him. He had seen
suffering before--what man had not?--but this was different; this
unsettled the foundations of his being; it found him vulnerable where he
had never been vulnerable before; he shrunk from it as he would shrink
from touching a white-hot surface. He was afraid of it.

He thought of the ghastly activities inside the house; they haunted him in
confused, horrid details amid which Lettice suffered and cried out.

He was unaware of the day wheeling splendidly through its golden hours,
of the sun swinging across the narrow rift of the valley. At long
intervals he heard muffled hoof-beats passing on the dusty road above. He
watched a trout slip lazily out from under the bank, and lie headed
upstream, slowly waving its fins. It recalled the trout he had left on
the porch of Hollidew's farmhouse on the night when he had attempted
to ... seduce ... Lettice!

The details of that occasion returned vivid, complete, unsparing. It was a
memory profoundly regrettable because of an obscure connection with
Lettice's present danger; it too--although he was unable to discover why
it should--took on the dark aspect of having helped to bring the other
about. As the memory of that night recurred to him he became conscious of
an obscure, traitorous force lurking within him, betraying him, leading
his complacency into foolish and fatal paths, into paths which totally
misrepresented him.... He would not really have gone away with Meta
Beggs.

He was a better man than all this would indicate! Yet--consider the
result; he might as well have committed a foul crime. But, in the end, it
would be all right. Doctors always predicted the darkest possibilities.

He turned and saw Doctor Pelliter striding up the slope to where his team
was hitched on the public road. A swift resentment swept over Gordon
Makimmon as he realized that the other had purposely avoided him. He rose
to demand attention, to call; but, instinctively, he stifled his voice.
The doctor stopped at the road, and saw him. Gordon waved toward the
house, and the other nodded curtly.

XX

He passed through the dining room to the inner doorway, where he brushed
by Mrs. Caley. Her face was as harsh and twisted as an old root. He
proceeded directly to the bed.

"Lettice," he said; "Lettice."

Then he saw the appalling futility of addressing that familiar name to the
strange head on the pillow.

Le