on the darkness, fuming and burning, making the valley clang with
their passage. They were gone, and the lights of the towns and villages
glittered in silence.

And then he came to the corner at home, which faced the other side
of the night. The ash-tree seemed a friend now. His mother rose with
gladness as he entered. He put his eight shillings proudly on the table.

"It'll help, mother?" he asked wistfully.

"There's precious little left," she answered, "after your ticket and
dinners and such are taken off."

Then he told her the budget of the day. His life-story, like an Arabian
Nights, was told night after night to his mother. It was almost as if it
were her own life.

CHAPTER VI

DEATH IN THE FAMILY

ARTHUR MOREL was growing up. He was a quick, careless, impulsive boy, a
good deal like his father. He hated study, made a great moan if he had
to work, and escaped as soon as possible to his sport again.

In appearance he remained the flower of the family, being well made,
graceful, and full of life. His dark brown hair and fresh colouring, and
his exquisite dark blue eyes shaded with long lashes, together with his
generous manner and fiery temper, made him a favourite. But as he grew
older his temper became uncertain. He flew into rages over nothing,
seemed unbearably raw and irritable.

His mother, whom he loved, wearied of him sometimes. He thought only of
himself. When he wanted amusement, all that stood in his way he
hated, even if it were she. When he was in trouble he moaned to her
ceaselessly.

"Goodness, boy!" she said, when he groaned about a master who, he said,
hated him, "if you don't like it, alter it, and if you can't alter it,
put up with it."

And his father, whom he had loved and who had worshipped him, he came
to detest. As he grew older Morel fell into a slow ruin. His body, which
had been beautiful in movement and in being, shrank, did not seem to
ripen with the years, but to get mean and rather despicable. There came
over him a look of meanness and of paltriness. And when the mean-looking
elderly man bullied or ordered the boy about, Arthur was furious.
Moreover, Morel's manners got worse and worse, his habits somewhat
disgusting. When the children were growing up and in the crucial stage
of adolescence, the father was like some ugly irritant to their souls.
His manners in the house were the same as he used among the colliers
down pit.

"Dirty nuisance!" Arthur would cry, jum