Still Hilary stared, his lips in the tight line which was the emblem of
his character, his body rigid. He saw his son turn and walk to the door,
and turn again with his handle on the knob, and Hilary did not move. The
door closed, and still he sat there, motionless, expressionless.

Austen was hailed by those in the outer office, but he walked through
them as though the place were empty. Rumours sprang up behind him of
which he was unconscious; the long-expected quarrel had come; Austen had
joined the motley ranks of the rebels under Mr. Crewe. Only the office
boy, Jimmy Towle, interrupted the jokes that were flying by repeating,
with dogged vehemence, "I tell you it ain't so. Austen kicked Ham
downstairs. Ned Johnson saw him." Nor was it on account of this
particular deed that Austen was a hero in Jimmy's eyes.

Austen, finding himself in the square, looked at his watch. It was
four o'clock. He made his way under the maples to the house in Hanover
Street, halted for a moment contemplatively before the familiar classic
pillars of its porch, took a key from his pocket, and (unprecedented
action!) entered by the front door. Climbing to the attic, he found two
valises--one of which he had brought back from Pepper County--and took
them to his own room. They held, with a little crowding, most of his
possessions, including a photograph of Sarah Austen, which he left on
the bureau to the last. Once or twice he paused in his packing to gaze
at the face, striving to fathom the fleeting quality of her glance
which the photograph had so strangely caught. In that glance nature had
stamped her enigma--for Sarah Austen was a child of nature. Hers was the
gentle look of wild things--but it was more; it was the understanding
of--the unwritten law of creation, the law by which the flowers grow,
and wither; the law by which the animal springs upon its prey, and,
unerring, seeks its mate; the law of the song of the waters, and the
song of the morning stars; the law that permits evil and pain and dumb,
incomprehensible suffering; the law that floods at sunset the mountain
lands with colour and the soul with light; and the law that rends the
branches in the blue storm. Of what avail was anger against it, or the
puny rage of man? Hilary Vane, not recognizing it, had spent his force
upon it, like a hawk against a mountain wall, but Austen looked at his
mother's face and understood. In it was not the wisdom of creeds and
cities, but the unwor