Then, when Zebener Hull's corn failed, 'I'll trouble
you for that amount,' the skinflint says, and sells
Zebener out. And what your father's lost," he
added more directly still, "wouldn't take you on
the stage to Stenton. Your father and Simmons
have got about everything worth getting in the
county; they've got the money, they've got the land,
they've got the men right in their iron safes. Right
and wrong," he sneered, "it's money--"

"Oh!, please," she begged, "please don't be so unhappy,
so hard. Life isn't as dreadful as that."

"It's worse," he declared somberly. They turned
by Simmons' store, but continued in the opposite direction
from the one-time Makimmon dwelling.
They passed a hedge of roses; the perfume hung
heavy-sweet, poignant; there was apparently no sky,
no earth, only a close, purple envelopment, imminent,
palpable, lying languidly, unstirring, in a
space without form or limit and of one color.

Lettice walked silently by his side; he could hear
her breathing, irregular, quick. She was very close
to him, then moved suddenly, consciously, away;
but, almost immediately, she drifted back, brushing
his shoulder; it seemed that she returned inevitably,
blindly; in the gloom her gown fluttered like the
soft, white wings of a moth against him.

"It's worse," he repeated, his voice loud and
harsh, like a discordant bell clashing in the soste-

[[97]]

p096 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p097w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p098

v?