will. It sat like Penelope over the loom, weaving terrible
fancies in blood and flame! the days that had been, the days that were
passing; the scenes of love and marriage; the old house and its latest
sinners; and the days that were to come, crimson-dyed, shameful; the
dreadful loom worked as if by enchantment, scene following scene, the
web endless, and the woven stuff flying into the sky like smoke from a
flying engine, darkening all the blue.

The days and nights passed while he wandered about in the open air.
Hunger assailed him, distances wearied him, he did not sleep; but these
hardships rather cooled the inward fire, and did not harm him. One day
he came to a pool, clear as a spring to its sandy bottom, embowered in
trees, except on one side where the sun shone. He took off his clothes
and plunged in. The waters closed over him sweet and cool as the embrace
of death. The loom ceased its working a while, and the thought rose
up, is vengeance worth the trouble? He sank to the sandy bed, and oh, it
was restful! A grip on a root held him there, and a song of his boyhood
soothed his ears until it died away in heavenly music, far off,
enticing, welcoming him to happier shores. He had found all at once
forgetfulness and happiness, and he would remain. Then his grip
loosened, and he came to the surface, swimming mechanically about,
debating with himself another descent into the enchanted region beneath.

Some happy change had touched him. He felt the velvety waters grasp his
body and rejoiced in it; the little waves which he sent to the reedy
bank made him smile with their huddling and back-rushing and laughing;
he held up his arm as he swam to see the sun flash through the drops of
water from his hand. What a sweet bed of death! No hard-eyed nurses and
physicians with their array of bottles, no hypocrites snuffling sympathy
while dreaming of fat legacies, no pious mummeries, only the innocent
things direct from the hand of God, unstained by human sin and training,
trees and bushes and flowers, the tender living things about, the
voiceless and passionless music of lonely nature, the hearty sun, and
the maternal embrace of the sweet waters. It was dying as the wild
animals die, without ceremony; as the flowers die, a gentle weakening of
the stem, a rush of perfume to the soft earth, and the caressing winds
to do the rest. Yes, down to the bottom again! Who would have looked for
so pleasant a door to death in that lonely a