necessary
delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left
him leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs that
surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped feeling fell across
his mind. It had always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of
that state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If he could
not "make good" here, what excuse could there be for him; what was there
left for him save the profitless and honourless life of the dilettante
and idler? He had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it
was worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for the
fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but that. He
never did his work better than that spring.

A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock was reported
seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times to inquire, and kept
himself fully informed. The doctor came twice from White Oaks, but then
ceased his visits. Bob did not know that such visits cost fifty dollars
apiece. Mary, Jim's wife, shared the care of the sick woman with George.
She was reported very weak, but getting on. The baby's death, together
with the other anxieties of the last two years, had naturally pulled her
down.

XX

Before the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob, happening to awaken, heard
a strange, rumbling, distant sound to the west. His first thought was
that the power dam had been opened and was discharging its waters, but
as his senses came to him, he realized that this could not be so. He
stretched himself idly. A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No
dregs of drowsiness remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into
the freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he had
concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious imagination, came
clearer to his ears. He listened for a moment, then walked rapidly to
the Lone Pine Hill from whose slight elevation he could see abroad over
the low mountains to the west. The gray light before sunrise was now
strengthening every moment. By the time Bob had reached the summit of
the knoll it had illuminated the world.

A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought with it the
murmur of a multitude. Bob topped the hill and turned his eyes to the
west. A great