light, blurred, mingled, in his vision. He put out
a hand against one of the porch supports -- a faded
shape of final and irremediable sorrow.

He exhibited neither the courage of resistance nor
the superiority of contempt; he offered, apparently,
nothing material whatsoever to satisfy the vengeance
of a populace cunningly defrauded of their just opportunities
and profits; he seemed to be no more
colored with life, no more instinct with sap, than the
crackling leaves blown by the increasing wind about
the uneasy feet on the grass.

He lipped a short, unintelligible period, gazing
intent and troubled at the throng. He shivered perceptibly:
under the hard blue sky the wind swept
with the sting of an icy knout. Then, turning his
obscure, infinitely dejected back upon the silent menace
of the bitter, sallow countenances, the harsh angular
forms, of Greenstream, he walked slowly to the
door. He paused, his hand upon the knob, as if arrested
by a memory, a realization. The door
opened; the house absorbed him, presented unbroken
its weather-worn face.

A deep, concerted sigh escaped from the men without,
as though, with the vanishing of that bowed and
shabby frame, they had seen vanish their last chance
for reprisal, for hope.

[[348]]

p347 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p348w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p349

v?