but with an effort of all his wasted
strength he burst it open and so entered the house.

The rooms were unfurnished and forlorn. He went from one to another,
pausing in each in the middle of the floor, and gazing around as if to
replace in that empty square the objects of the past. This progress
made, he looked for a place to rest, but there was neither chair nor
bench. All was bare, unswept, and desolate. He went into the kitchen,
for he remembered the old settle there upon the enormous hearth. That
they could not have removed, it was too heavy. He found it, took off his
riding-coat and made a pillow for his head, then lay down full length
upon the time-darkened wood. He had lain so, often and often, a little
boy, a larger boy, a long-limbed, brooding youth. It had been his refuge
from the fields, though hardly a refuge from his father. Gideon had
been always there, lounging in his chair on the other side of the
hearth, black pipe in hand, heavy stick beside him, revolving in
his slow-moving mind, there in the dusk after the day's work,
tobacco--tobacco--tobacco--and how he should keep Lewis from learning.
"It had been better if he had succeeded," said Rand aloud.

With Gideon still before his eyes he fell asleep. Grim as was that
figure, there was in the vision of it a strange sense of protection. It
was his father, and, giddy from want of sleep, he sank slowly into
oblivion, much as before now he had travelled there in the other's
presence,--travelled with a gloomy mind and a body sore from the latest
beating. Now the mind was full of scorpions, and the body stood in
deadly need of sleep. It took it with a strange reversion to long
gone-by conditions. The thought of Gideon's stick, the feel of his heavy
hand upon his shoulder, were with him as of yore. The difference was
that the man was comforted by what had been the boy's leaden cross.

Exhausted as he was, he slept at first heavily, and without a dream.
This state lasted for some time, but eventually the brain took up its
work, and the visions that plagued him recommenced. He turned, flung out
his arm, moaned once or twice, lay quiet, then presently gave a cry and
started up, pale and trembling, the sweat upon his brow. He wiped it
off, drew a long, shuddering breath, and sat staring.

The kitchen windows were small, and half darkened by their wooden
shutters. While he slept, the day had rounded into an afternoon, with
more of sunshine than the morning had co