had
sat there, the four of them, while that bruised-nosed bouncer had
brought them drink on his rattling tin tray. And then his own
self-satisfied, smug, complacent egotism at his own cleverness, his
unbounded confidence in his own ability to pull off the game, and--

Well, he had pulled it off--he'd won it--won it--won it--everybody had
fallen for it--the boobs had been plentiful--the harvest rich. What was
the matter with him! He'd won--was winning every time the clock ticked.
Somebody back there was probably throwing good hard coin at him this
minute--the damned fool! Madison threw back his head to laugh in
derision, for there was mocking, contemptuous laughter in his soul--but
the laugh died still-born upon his lips.

It was fear now--fear--staggering, appalling him. He was facing
something--_something_--his brain did not seem to define it--something
that was cold and stern and immutable, that was omnipotent, that
embodied awe--a condemnation unalterable, unchangeable, before which he
shrank back with his soul afraid. Before him seemed to unfold itself the
wagon track, the road to the Patriarch's cottage; and he was there
again, and whispering lips were around him, and men and women and
children were there, and in front of them, leading them, slithered that
twisted, misshapen, formless thing--and now they were upon the lawn, and
about him everywhere, everywhere, everywhere was a sea of white faces
out of which the eyes burned like living coals. What power was this
that, loosed, had stricken them to palsied, moaning things!

Madison shivered a little--and a sweat bead oozed out and glistened upon
his forehead. Hark--what was that! Clarionlike, clear as the chimes of a
silver bell, rang now that childish voice--rang out, and rang out
again--and the crutch was gone--and the lame boy ran, ran--_ran_! And
who was that, that stood before him now--that golden-haired woman beside
an empty wheel-chair, whose face was radiant, who cried aloud that she
was _cured_! And who were these others of later days, this motley crowd
of old and young, that passed before him in procession, that cried out
the same words that golden-haired woman by the wheel-chair had
cried--and cried out: "Faith! Faith! Faith!"

Madison swept the sweat bead from his forehead with a trembling hand. It
was a lie--a lie--a lie! He had taught them to say that--but it was all
bunk--and all were fools! He could laugh at them, jeer at them, mock at
them, deri