need of hiding his state, of shunning other
eyes till he should regain his balance.

He had spent the long hours in the train in fruitless broodings on a
discouraging situation, and he remembered how his bitterness had turned
to exasperation when he found that the Weymore sleigh was not awaiting
him. It was absurd, of course; but, though he had joked with Rainer over
Mrs. Culme's forgetfulness, to confess it had cost a pang. That was what
his rootless life had brought him to: for lack of a personal stake in
things his sensibility was at the mercy of such trifles.... Yes; that,
and the cold and fatigue, the absence of hope and the haunting sense of
starved aptitudes, all these had brought him to the perilous verge over
which, once or twice before, his terrified brain had hung.

Why else, in the name of any imaginable logic, human or devilish,
should he, a stranger, be singled out for this experience? What could
it mean to him, how was he related to it, what bearing had it on his
case?... Unless, indeed, it was just because he was a stranger--a
stranger everywhere--because he had no personal life, no warm screen of
private egotisms to shield him from exposure, that he had developed this
abnormal sensitiveness to the vicissitudes of others. The thought pulled
him up with a shudder. No! Such a fate was too abominable; all that
was strong and sound in him rejected it. A thousand times better regard
himself as ill, disorganized, deluded, than as the predestined victim of
such warnings!

He reached the gates and paused before the darkened lodge. The wind had
risen and was sweeping the snow into his race. The cold had him in its
grasp again, and he stood uncertain. Should he put his sanity to the
test and go back? He turned and looked down the dark drive to the house.
A single ray shone through the trees, evoking a picture of the lights,
the flowers, the faces grouped about that fatal room. He turned and
plunged out into the road....

He remembered that, about a mile from Overdale, the coachman had pointed
out the road to Northridge; and he began to walk in that direction.
Once in the road he had the gale in his face, and the wet snow on his
moustache and eye-lashes instantly hardened to ice. The same ice seemed
to be driving a million blades into his throat and lungs, but he pushed
on, the vision of the warm room pursuing him.

The snow in the road was deep and uneven. He stumbled across ruts and
sank into drifts, and the