s legs. He walked as soberly as any man. There was no
hesitancy, no faltering, in his muscular movements. The whisky went to
his brain, making his eyes heavy-lidded and the cloudiness of them
more cloudy. Not that he was flighty, nor quick, nor irritable. On the
contrary, the liquor imparted to his mental processes a deep gravity and
brooding solemnity. He talked little, but that little was ominous
and oracular. At such times there was no appeal from his judgment, no
discussion. He knew, as God knew. And when he chose to speak a harsh
thought, it was ten-fold harsher than ordinarily, because it seemed
to proceed out of such profundity of cogitation, because it was as
prodigiously deliberate in its incubation as it was in its enunciation.

It was not a nice side he was showing to Saxon. It was, almost, as if a
stranger had come to live with her. Despite herself, she found herself
beginning to shrink from him. And little could she comfort herself
with the thought that it was not his real self, for she remembered his
gentleness and considerateness, all his finenesses of the past. Then
he had made a continual effort to avoid trouble and fighting. Now he
enjoyed it, exulted in it, went looking for it. All this showed in
his face. No longer was he the smiling, pleasant-faced boy. He smiled
infrequently now. His face was a man's face. The lips, the eyes, the
lines were harsh as his thoughts were harsh.

He was rarely unkind to Saxon; but, on the other hand he was
rarely kind. His attitude toward her was growing negative. He was
disinterested. Despite the fight for the union she was enduring with
him, putting up with him shoulder to shoulder, she occupied but little
space in his mind. When he acted toward her gently, she could see that
it was merely mechanical, just as she was well aware that the endearing
terms he used, the endearing caresses he gave, were only habitual. The
spontaneity and warmth had gone out. Often, when he was not in liquor,
flashes of the old Billy came back, but even such flashes dwindled in
frequency. He was growing preoccupied, moody. Hard times and the bitter
stresses of industrial conflict strained him. Especially was this
apparent in his sleep, when he suffered paroxysms of lawless dreams,
groaning and muttering, clenching his fists, grinding his teeth,
twisting with muscular tensions, his face writhing with passions and
violences, his throat guttering with terrible curses that rasped and
aborted on