oubt. Well, and so you
shall, my son. I'll get you in. Only leave it to me. Only leave it to
me."

Jason had expected this answer; like a horse that quivers under the
lash, while it is yet hissing over his head, he had seen the blow
coming, yet when it came it startled and stunned him. He got up,
touching no food, and staggered back into the street.

It was now dark night. The stores were lit up by their open lamps,
whose noisome smoke streamed out over the pathway, and mingled with
the foul vapors that came from the drinking shops. The little town
was very busy; throngs of people passed to and fro, and there was
much shouting and noisy laughter.

To Jason all this was a mass of confusion, like a dream that is vague
and broken and has no semblance of reality. His knees smote together
as he walked, and his mind was clogged and numbed. At length he was
conscious that some brawlers who were lounging at the door of a
tavern were jeering as he went by them, and that a woman who was
passing at the same moment was rating them roundly.

"Can't you see he's ill?" she was saying, and they were laughing
lustily.

He turned towards the sea, and there, with only the black beach
before his eyes and the monotonous beat of the waves in his ears, his
faculties grew clearer. "Oh God!" he thought, "am I to strike him
down before her face and at the very foot of the altar? It is
terrible. It must be true that I am ill--or perhaps mad--or both."

But he wrestled with his irresolute spirit and overcame it. One by
one he marshalled his reasons and bit by bit he justified himself.
When his anger wavered against the man who had twice supplanted him,
he recalled his vow to execute judgment, and when his vow seemed
horrible he remembered that Greeba herself had wronged him.

Thus he had juggled with himself night after night, and if morning
after morning peace had come with the coming of light, it was gone
forever now. He rehearsed everything in his mind and saw it all as he
meant it to be. To-morrow while the bells were ringing he would go
into the Cathedral. His old landlady, the caretaker, would put him
in the front seat before the altar-rail. The pews would already be
thronged, and there would be whispering behind him, and little light
fits of suppressed laughter. Presently the old Bishop would come,
halting along in his surplice, holding the big book in his trembling
hands. Then the bridegroom would step forward, and he should see h