f saliva flowing from one corner. He breathed hard and
loudly. There was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh.

Sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt her
flesh creep. She turned a hard, angry face on Page. "Oh, the beast!
The beast!" she cried, under her breath. She felt defiled. She hated
Arnold. She hated life.

Page said quietly: "You'll excuse my not going with you to the house?
I'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment." He stepped away
quickly and Sylvia turned to flee into the house.

But something halted her flying feet. She hesitated, stopped, and
pressed her hands together hard. He could not be left alone there in
the driveway. A car might run over him in the dusk. She turned back.

She stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. She turned her
back on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthless
body, the dreadful ignominy of the face. They filled the world.

And then quickly--everything came quickly to Sylvia--there stood
before her the little boy who had come to see them in La Chance so
long ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother and
Judith, who had loved Pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; and
then the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a share
of her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, still
honest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in misery
upon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those pure
tears of joy that he had found love. She had a moment of insight, of
vision, of terrible understanding. She did not know what was taking
place within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of sudden
growth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of the
capacity for pity ...

When, only a moment or two later, Page's car came swiftly down the
driveway, and he sprang out, he found Sylvia sitting by the drunkard,
the quiet tears streaming down her face. She had wiped his mouth with
her handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staring
face was hidden on her shoulder....

The two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into the
car. She stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gently
disposed his slackly hanging arms beside him.

Dark had quite fallen by this time. They were all silent, shadowy
forms. She felt that Page was at her side. He leaned to her. Her hand
was taken and kissed.

CHAPTER XXXII

MUC