a
moment a sudden and unreasoning rage at that thing which he had called
fate. He saw the unfairness of it all, the hopelessness of it, the
cowardly subterfuge and trickery of life itself as it had played
against him, and with tightly set lips and clenched hands he called
mutely on God Almighty to play the game square. Give him a chance! Give
him just one square deal, only one; let him see a way, let him fight a
man's fight with a ray of hope ahead! In these red moments hope
emblazoned itself before his eyes as a monstrous lie. Bitterness rose
in him until he was drunk with it, and blasphemy filled his heart.
Whichever way he turned, however hard he fought, there was no chance of
winning. From the day he killed Kirkstone the cards had been stacked
against him, and they were stacked now and would be stacked until the
end. He had believed in God, he had believed in the inevitable ethics
of the final reckoning of things, and he had believed strongly that an
impersonal Something more powerful than man-made will was behind him in
his struggles. These beliefs were smashed now. Toward them he felt the
impulse of a maddened beast trampling hated things under foot. They
stood for lies--treachery--cheating--yes, contemptible cheating! It was
impossible for him to win. However he played, whichever way he turned,
he must lose. For he was Conniston, and she was Conniston's sister, AND
MUST BE TO THE END OF TIME.

Faintly, beyond the door, he heard Mary Josephine singing. Like a bit
of steel drawn to a tension his normal self snapped back into place.
His readjustment came with a lurch, a subtle sort of shock. His hands
unclenched, the tense lines in his face relaxed, and because that God
Almighty he had challenged had given to him an unquenchable humor, he
saw another thing where only smirking ghouls and hypocrites had rent
his brain with their fiendish exultations a moment before. It was
Conniston's face, suave, smiling, dying, triumphant over life, and
Conniston was saying, just as he had said up there in the cabin on the
Barren, with death reaching out a hand for him, "It's queer, old top,
devilish queer--and funny!"

Yes, it was funny if one looked at it right, and Keith found himself
swinging back into his old view-point. It was the hugest joke life had
ever played on him. His sister! He could fancy Conniston twisting his
mustaches, his cool eyes glimmering with silent laughter, looking on
his predicament, and he could fancy