necked man in his rage. Gleams of mockery and of cunning
still played over the red cheeks of Jason Philip, for he had a very high
opinion of himself, and did not think the windy follies of a boy of
nineteen worthy of the whole weight of his personality.

While he talked his little eyes sparkled, and his red, little tongue
pushed away the recalcitrant hairs of his moustache from his voluble
lips. Daniel stood by the door, leaning against the post, his arms
folded across his chest, and regarded now his mother, who, dumb and
suddenly old, sat in a corner of the sofa, now the oil portrait of his
father on the opposite wall. A friend of Gottfried Nothafft's youth, a
painter who had been long lost and forgotten like his other works, had
once painted it. It showed a man of serious bearing, and brought to mind
the princely guildsman of the Middle Ages. Seeing the picture at that
moment enlightened Daniel as to the ancestral strain that had brought
him to this mood and to this hour.

And turning now once more to Jason Philip's face, he thought he
perceived in it the restlessness of an evil conscience. It seemed to him
that this man was not acting from conviction but from an antecedent
determination. It seemed to him further that he was faced, not merely by
this one man and his rage and its accidental causes, but by a whole
world in arms that was pledged to enmity against him. He had no
inclination now to await the end of Jason Philip's oratorical efforts,
and left the room.

Jason Philip grew pale. "Don't let us deceive ourselves, Marian," he
said. "You have nursed a viper on your bosom."

Daniel stood by the Wolfram fountain in the square, and let the purple
of the setting sun shine upon him. Round about him the stones and the
beams of the ancient houses glowed, and the maids who came with pails to
fetch water at the fountain gazed with astonishment into the brimming
radiance of the sky. At this hour his native town grew very dear to
Daniel. When Jason Philip entered the square, at the corner of which the
stage-coach was waiting, he did his best not to be seen by Daniel and
avoided him in a wide semi-circle. But Daniel turned around and fastened
his eyes on the man, who strode rapidly and gazed stubbornly aside.

This thing too has happened before and will happen again. Nor is it
amazing that the fugitive should turn and inspire terror in his pursuer.

IX

Daniel saw that he could not