r running
away and playing truant, and so many for lying, more for stealing, so
many for all three. This time it was all three. Eddy counted while
his father laid on the blows as regularly as a machine. When at last
he stopped, Eddy did not move. He spoke without moving his head.

"There are two more, papa," he said. "You have stopped too soon."

Carroll's face contracted, but he gave the two additional blows. "Now
undress yourself and go to bed," he told the boy, in an even tone. "I
will have some bread and milk sent up for your supper. To-morrow
morning you will take that candy back to the store, and tell the man
you stole it, and ask his pardon."

"Yes, sir," said Eddy. He at once began unfastening his little blouse
preparatory to retiring.

Carroll went out of the room and closed the door behind him. His
sister met him at the head of the stairs and accosted him in a sort
of fury.

"Arthur Carroll," said she, tersely, "I wish you would tell me one
thing. Did you whip that child for his faults or your own?"

Carroll looked at her. He was very pale, and his face seemed to have
lengthened out and aged. "For both, Anna," he replied.

"What right have you to punish him for your faults, I should like to
know?"

"The right of the man who gave them to him."

"You have the right to punish him for your faults--_your_ faults?"

"I could kill him for my faults, if necessary."

"Who is going to punish you for your faults? Tell me that, Arthur
Carroll."

"The Lord Almighty in His own good time," replied Carroll, and passed
her and went down-stairs.

Chapter X

The next morning, just before nine o'clock, Anderson was sitting in
his office, reading the morning paper. The wind had changed in the
night and was blowing from the northwest. The atmosphere was full of
a wonderful clearness and freshness. Anderson was conscious of
exhilaration. Life assumed a new aspect. New ambitions pressed upon
his fancy, new joys seemed to crowd upon his straining vision in
culminating vistas of the future. Without fairly admitting it to
himself, it had seemed to him as if he had already in a great measure
exhausted the possibilities of his own life, as if he had begun to
see the bare threads of the warp, as if he had worn out the first
glory of the pattern design. Now it was suddenly all different. It
looked to him as if he had scarcely begun to live, as if he had not
had his first taste of existence. He felt himself a youth.