eemed to have the power of as many
centuries, he had looked on sin, shame, disgrace, with what seemed to be
the eyes of God; so did the horror shock eye and heart, yet leave him
sight and life to look again and again.

In that time he tasted with his own lips the bitterness which makes the
most wretched death sweeter by comparison than bread and honey to the
hungry. At the end of it, when he stole away a madman, he felt within
his own soul the cracking and upheaving of some immensity, and saw or
felt the opening of abysses from which rose fearful exhalations of
crime, shapes of corruption, things without shape that provoked to rage,
pain and madness. He was not without cunning, since he closed the doors
softly, stole away in the shadows of the house and the avenue, and
escaped to a distant wood unseen. From his withered face all feeling
except horror had faded. Once deep in the wood, he fell under the trees
like an epileptic, turned on his face, and dug the earth with hands and
feet and face in convulsions of pain.

The frightened wood-life, sleeping or waking, fled from the great
creature in its agony. In the darkness he seemed some monster, which in
dreadful silence, writhed and fought down a slow road to death. He was
hardly conscious of his own behavior, poor innocent, crushed by the sins
of others. He lived, and every moment was a dying. He gasped as with the
last breath, yet each breath came back with new torture. He shivered to
the root of nature, like one struck fatally, and the convulsion revived
life and thought and horror. After long hours a dreadful sleep bound his
senses, and he lay still, face downward, arms outstretched, breathing
like a child, a pitiful sight. Death must indeed be a binding thing,
that father and mother did not leave the grave to soothe and strengthen
their wretched son. He lay there on his face till dawn. The crowing of
the cock, which once warned Peter of his shame, waked him. He turned
over, stared at the branches above, sat up puzzled, and showed his face
to the dim light. His arms gathered in his knees, and he made an effort
to recollect himself. But no one would have mistaken that sorrowful,
questioning face; it was Adam looking toward the lost Eden with his arms
about the dead body of his son. A desolate and unconscious face,
wretched and vacant as a lone shore strewn with wreckage.

He struggled to his feet after a time, wondering at his weakness. The
effort roused and steadied