was lucky to-night, but to-morrow night the enemy himself
might go down under longer claws and be torn by fangs stronger than his
own. And God had made it so. And God did not care.

Raven lay there panting under the horror of it. The sweat started on his
skin. He was afraid. It was not his own well-being he feared for. Man's
life was short at the most. A few years might finish him up. It was
unlikely that he need live again. But he feared seeing still more of the
acts of this unmindful God, who could make, and set the wheel of being
to turning and then stand aside and let them grind out their
immeasurable grist of woe. And when he asked himself how he knew God was
standing aside, letting the days and years fulfil their sum, he believed
it was because he had suddenly become aware that time was a boundless
sea and that the human soul was sometimes in the trough of it and
sometimes on the crest. But never would the sea cast its derelicts upon
warm shores where they might build the house of life and live in peace
and innocence. Ever would they find themselves tossed from low to high
and fall from high to low again in the salt wash of the retreating wave.
For after all, it was the mysterious sea God had a mind to, never the
derelict atoms afloat on it. They would have to take sea weather to
time's extremest verge, as they always had taken it. They were
derelicts.

As the light came, the leaden wings lifted and he went down to the early
breakfast Charlotte and Jerry intended to eat alone. Charlotte, with her
good morning, gave him a quick glance. He found she had not expected him
so early and knew she saw at once how harassed he was. He insisted on
sitting down to breakfast with them and, after Jerry had gone out, went
over the house in a mindless way, into all the rooms, to give himself
something to do. Also there seemed to be a propriety in it, a
fittingness in presenting himself to his own walls and accepting their
silent recognition. Then, hearing Charlotte upstairs, he went back into
the kitchen, as straight as if he had meant to go there all the time and
had merely idled on these delaying quests, and up to the nail by the
shed door where the key always hung, the key to Old Crow's hut. He took
it off the nail, dropped it in his pocket, got a leather jacket from the
hall and went out into the road. As he went, he heard Jerry moving about
in the barn and walked the faster, not to be halted or offered friendly
company. At