pon--just as one says of
a man, he did so-and-so with a turn of the wrist, that is, quite
easily, without putting his back into it. Yes, he thought, that's
about right. Then to make up something for an instance, just to spread
the idea as big as it ought properly to be, one might say that once
upon a time God gave our sun and all the other suns the slightest push
with His finger, _and they haven't done moving yet_.

And it seemed to him that, look where one pleased, one could see the
real work of the finger of God. It had been giving him, William Dale,
faint imperceptible pushes for fifteen years, and see now at the end
where it had pushed him. First it had pushed him upward, higher and
higher, to a position of conspicuous pride, to the topmost summit of a
fair mountain, where he could look round and say, "I have all that I
pined for. This is the world's castle, and I am the king of the
castle." Then it had begun to push him down the other side of this
mountain, the dark side, the side that was always in shadow, downward
and still downward to the miasmic unhealthy plain where all was
rankness, downward to the level of corruption and death. Yes, it had
brought him, the bold, proud law-maker, down and down till he stood no
higher than the victim of his law.

He remembered the common phrase--so often employed by
himself--comparing mice with men. Am I a man or a mouse? And it seemed
that no cat had ever played with a mouse as the Infinite Ruling Power
of the universe had been playing with the man William Dale. He had
been allowed to break loose, to frisk and jump, to fancy he was free
to run right round the earth if he wished to do so; and all the while
he had truly been a prisoner, the helpless prey of his captor, held
close to the place of ultimate doom.

If he had been promptly convicted and hanged, it would have been no
punishment at all compared with what was happening now. The long delay
was the essential part of the punishment, and of the lesson. The fact
that no one suspected his crime had given him the period of agonized
suspense, with all those dream-torments, the fear of death which was
worse than death itself.

He thought of all the things that had appeared to be blind chances but
were really stern decrees. The true function of the money that came
from the dead man's hand was to keep him always on the rack of memory.
And with the aid of the money he had been made to move a little nearer
to the site of his c