r knowledge and a clearer brain, a thousand-fold
more deadly dangerous than of old; because this time he knew better
and had deliberately chosen the evil and rejected the good. By the law
of the pendulum he must swing as far backward into wrong as he had
swung forward into right.

I could not bring myself to speak to him, I dared not bid him the
mockery of a Godspeed upon his journey, dreading as I did that
journey's end. So I stood at a window and watched him as with suitcase
in hand he walked down our shady street. At the corner he turned and
lifted his hat in a last farewell salute to my mother, standing
looking after him in the Parish House gate. Then he turned down the
side-street, and so disappeared.

From his closed rooms came a long wailing howl. For the first time
Kerry might not follow his master; more yet, the master had thrust the
astonished dog into his bedroom and shut the door upon him. He had
refused to recognize the scratch at the door, the snuffling whine
through the keyhole. The outer door had slammed. Kerry raced to the
window. And the master was going, and going without him! He had
neither net, knapsack, nor bottle-belt, but he carried a suitcase. He
did not look back, nor whistle: he _meant_ to leave him behind.
Sensing that an untoward thing was occurring, a thing that boded no
good to himself or his beloved, the red dog lifted his voice and
howled a piercing protest.

The sash was down, but the blinds had not yet been closed to. One saw
Kerry standing with his forepaws on the window-sill, his nose against
the glass, his ears lifted, his eyes anxious and distressed, his lip
caught in his teeth. At intervals he threw back his head, and then
came the howls.

The catastrophe--for to me it was no less a thing--had come upon me so
suddenly that I was fairly stunned. From sheer force of habit I went
over to the church and knelt before the altar; but I could not pray; I
could only kneel there dumbly. I heard the screech of the three
o'clock express coming in, and, a few minutes later, its longer
screech as it departed. He had gone, then! I was not dreaming it: it
was true. Down and down and down went my heart. And down and down and
down went my head, humbled and prostrate. Alas, the end of hope, the
fall of pride! Alas and alas for the fair house built upon the sand,
wrecked and scattered!

When I rose from my knees I staggered. I walked draggingly, as one
walks with fetters upon the feet. Oh, it