dhood, still personified shining success
in my eyes, appeared to add a certain horror to this sense of
helplessness, of failure, that dragged me under. Deep down within me,
down below my love for Sally or for the child, something older than any
emotion, older than any instinct except the instinct of battle, awakened
and passed from passiveness into violence. "Let me but start again in
the race," said this something, "let me but stand once more on my feet."
The despondency, which had been at first formless and vague as mere
darkness, leaped suddenly into a tangible shape, and I felt that the
oppressive weight of the debt on my shoulders was the weight, not of
thought, but of metal. Until that was lifted--until I had struggled
free--I should be crippled, I told myself, not only in ambition, but in
body.

From the detached kitchen, at the end of the short brick walk, overgrown
with wild violets, that led to it, the sound of George's laugh fell on
my ears. Rising to my feet with an effort, I stood, listening, without
thought, to the sound, which seemed to grow vacant and sad as it floated
to me in the warm air over the sunken bricks. Then passing through the
long window, I descended the steps slowly, and stopped in the shadow of
a pink crape myrtle that grew near the kitchen doorway. Again the
merriment came to me, Sally's laughter mingling this time with George's.

"No, that will never do. This is the way," she said, in her sparkling
voice, which reminded me always of running water.

"Sally!" I called, and moving nearer, I paused at the kitchen step,
while she came quickly forward, with some white, filmy stuff she had
just rinsed in the tub still in her hands.

"Why, here's Ben!" she exclaimed. "You bad boy, when I told you
positively not to get up out of that chair!"

A gingham apron was pinned over her waist and bosom, her sleeves were
rolled back, and I saw the redness from the hot soapsuds rising from her
hands to her elbows.

"For God's sake, Sally, what are you doing?" I demanded, and reaching
out, as I swayed slightly, I caught the lintel of the door for support.

"I'm washing and George is splitting kindling wood," she replied
cheerfully, shaking out the white, filmy stuff with an upward movement
of her bare arms; "the boy who splits the wood never came--I think he
ate too many currants yesterday--and if George hadn't offered his
services as man of all work, I dread to think what you and Aunt
Euphronasia wo