calamity, sorrow,
and tragedy with them into his own circle of friends, into his own
household, into his own heart. As he walked through the dull, lonely
hours he could not escape the vague feeling, though he fought it as
one mad fights for his delusion, that all the tragedies piling up
about him came from his own mistakes. Over and over again he threshed
the past. Molly Brownwell's cry, "You have sold me into bondage, John
Barclay," would not be stilled, though at times he could smile at it;
and the broken body and shamed face of her father haunted him like an
obsession. Night after night when he tried to sleep, Robert Hendricks'
letter burned in fire before his eyes, and at last so mad was the
struggle in his soul that he hugged these things to him that he might
escape the greater horror: the dreadful red headlines in the
sensational paper they had sent him from the City office which
screamed at him, "John Barclay slays his wife--Aids a water
franchise grab that feeds the people typhoid germs and his own wife
dies of the fever." He had not replied to the letter from the law
department of the Provisions Company which asked if he wished to sue
for libel, and begged him to do so. He had burned the paper, but the
headlines were seared into his brain.

Over and over he climbed the fiery ladder of his sins: the death of
General Hendricks, the sacrifice of Molly Culpepper, the temptation
and fall of her father, the death of his boyhood's friend, and then
the headlines. These things were laid at his door, and over and over
again, like Sisyphus rolling the stones uphill, he swept them away
from his threshold, only to find that they rolled right back again.
And with them came at times the suspicion that his daughter's
unhappiness was upon him also. And besides these things, a hundred
business transactions wherein he had cheated and lied for money rose
to disturb him. And through it all, through his anguish and shame, the
faith of his life kept battling for its dominion.

Once he sent for Bemis and tried to talk himself into peace with his
friend. He did not speak of the things that were corroding his heart,
but he sat by and heard himself chatter his diabolic creed as a
drunkard watches his own folly.

"Lige," he said, "I'm sick of that infernal charities bureau we've
got. I'm going to abolish it. These philanthropic millionaires make me
sick at the stomach, Lige. What do they care for the people? They know
what I know, tha