ng a sting which was all its own, came the thought
of this newest obligation laid upon him by his father and his father's
wife. They had taken him in and were loading him down with kinsman gifts
of care and loving-kindness, while his purpose had been--must still
be--to strike back like a merciless enemy. He remembered the old fable
of the adder warmed to life in a man's bosom, and it left him sick and
nerveless.

None the less, the obsession of the indomitable purpose persisted,
gripping him like the compelling hand of a giant in whose grasp he was
powerless. For a time he sought to escape, not realizing that the
obsession was the call of the blood passed on from the men of his race
who, with axe and rifle, had hewn and fought their way in the primeval
wilderness, and would not be denied. Neither did he suspect that the
dominating passion driving him on was his best gift from the man
against whom he was pitting his strength. What he did presently realize
was that the giant grip of purpose was not to be broken; and thereupon a
vast cunning came to possess him. He must have time and a chance to plan
again: if he should feign sleep, perhaps the woman whose presence and
personality were shackling the inventive thought would go away and leave
him free to think.

She did go after a while, though so noiselessly that when he opened his
eyes it was with the fear that he should see her still bending over the
little embroidery frame at the window. Finding himself alone, he sat up
in bed and gave the broken head an opportunity to blot him out if it
could. For a little space the walls of the room became as the interior
of a hollow peg-top, spinning furiously with a noise like the rushing of
many waters. After the surroundings had resumed their normal figurings
he rose to his knees. There was another grapple with the whirling
peg-top, and again he mastered the dizzying confusion. Made bold by
success, he got his feet on the floor and stood up, clinging to the
brass foot-rail of the bed until the unstable encompassments had once
more come to rest.

By this time he was able to conquer all save the throbbing headache.
Shuffling first to one door and then to the other, he shot the bolts
against intrusion. Then he staggered across to the dressing-case and
took a look at himself in the glass. The bandaged head, with its
haggard, pain-distorted face grimacing back at him, extorted a grunt of
sardonic disapproval, but the mirror answered