The old brown hand suddenly stopped clenching and unclenching, and out from the cushions the old brown head with its few hairs and its parchment face poked like a withered jack-in-the-box.

"Hullo, boy, you here?"

"Grandfather, what's the matter with the house?"

The old man's fingers, sharp like pins, drew Peter close to him.

"Boy, I'm terribly frightened. I've been having such dreams. I thought I was dead--in a coffin...."

But Peter whispered in his ear:

"Grandfather--tell me--what's the matter with every one here?"

The old man's eyes were suddenly sharp, like needles.

"Ah, he wants to know that, does he? He's found out something at last, has he? _I_ know what they were about. They've been at it in here, boy, too. Oh, yes! for weeks and weeks--killing your mother, that's what my son's been doing ... frightening her to death.... He's cruel, my son. I had the Devil once, and now he's got hold of me and that's why I'm here.

Mind you, boy," and the old man's ringers clutched him very tightly--"if you don't get the better of the Devil you'll be just like me one of these days. So'll he be, my son, one day. Just like me--and then it'll be your turn, my boy. Oh, they Westcotts!... Oh! my pains! Oh! my pains!... Oh! I'm a poor old man!--poor old man!"

His head sunk beneath the cushions again and his muttering died away like a kettle when the lid has been put on to it.

Peter had been kneeling so as to catch his grandfather's words. Now he drew himself up and with frowning brows faced the room. Had he but known it he was at that moment exactly like his father.

He went slowly up to his attic.

His little book-case had gained in the last two years--there were now three of Henry Galleon's novels there. Bobby had given him one, "Henry Lessingham," shining bravely in its red and gold; he had bought another, "The Downs," second hand, and it was rather tattered and well thumbed.

Another, "The Roads," was a shilling paper copy. He had read these three again and again until he knew them by heart, almost word by word. He took down "Henry Lessingham" now and opened it at a page that was turned down. It is Book III, chapter VI, and there is this passage:

_But, concerning the Traveller who would enter the House of Courage there are many lands that must be passed on the road before he rest there. There is, first, the Land of Lacking All Things--that is hard to cross. There is, Secondly, the Land of Having All Things. There is the Traveller's Fortitude most hardly tested. There is, Thirdly, The Land of Losing All Those Things that One Hath Possessed. That is a hard country indeed for the memory of the pleasantness of those earlier joys redoubleth the agony of lacking them. But at the end there is a Land of ice and snow that few travellers have compassed, and that is the Land of Knowing What One Hath Missed.... The Bird was in the hand and one let it go ... that is the hardest agony of all the journey ... but if these lands be encountered and surpassed then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul and is master of it ... this is the Meaning and Purpose of Life._

Peter read on through those pages where Lessingham, having found these words in some old book, takes courage after his many misadventures and starts again life--an old man, seventy years of age, but full of hope ... and then there is his wonderful death in the Plague City, closing it all like a Triumph.

The night had come down upon the house. Over the moor some twinkling light broke the black darkness and his candle blew in the wind.

Everything was very still and as he clutched his book in his hand he knew that he was frightened. His grandfather's words had filled him with terror. He felt not only that his father was cruel and had been torturing his mother for many years because he loved to hurt, but he felt also that it was something in the blood, and that it would come upon him also, in later years, and that he might not be able to beat it down. He could understand definite things when they were tangible before his eyes but here was something that one could not catch hold of, something....

After all, he was very young--But he remembered, with bated breath, times at school when he had suddenly wanted to twist arms, to break things, to hurt, when suddenly a fierce hot pleasure had come upon him, when a boy had had his leg broken at football.

Dropping the book, shuddering, he fell upon his knees and prayed to what God he knew not.... "Then doth the Traveller at length possess his soul and is master of it ... this is the meaning and purpose of life."

At last he rose from his knees, physically tired, as though it had been some physical struggle. But he was quiet again ... the terror had left him, but he knew now with what beasts he had got to wrestle....

At supper that night he watched his father. Curiously, after his struggle of the afternoon, all terror had left him and he felt as though he was of his father's age and strength.

In the middle of the meal he spoke:

"How is mother to-night, father?"

He had never asked about his mother before, but his voice was quite even and steady. His aunt dropped her knife clattering on to her plate.

His father answered him:

"Why do you wish to know?"

"It is natural, isn't it? I am afraid that she is not so well."

"She is as well as can be expected."

They said no more, but once his father suddenly looked at him, as though he had noticed some new note in his voice.

III

On the next afternoon his father went into Truro. A doctor came occasionally to the house--a little man like a beaver--but Peter felt that he was under his father's hand and he despised him.

It was a clear Autumn afternoon with a scent of burning leaves in the air and heavy massive white clouds were piled in ramparts beyond the brown hills. It was so still a day that the sea seemed to be murmuring just beyond the garden-wall. The house was very silent; Mrs. Trussit was in the housekeeper's room, his grandfather was sleeping in the dining-room. The voices of some children laughing in the road came to him so clearly that it seemed to Peter impossible that his father ...

and, at that, he knew instantly that his chance had come. He must see his mother now--there might not be another opportunity for many weeks.

He left his room and stood at the head of the stairs listening. There was no sound.

He stole down very softly and then waited again at the end of the long passage. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall drove him down the passage. He listened again outside his mother's door--there was no sound from within and very slowly he turned the handle.

As the door opened his senses were invaded by that air of medicine and flowers that he had remembered as a very small boy--he seemed to be surrounded by it and great white vases on the mantelpiece filled his eyes, and the white curtains at the window blew in the breeze of the opening door.

His aunt was sitting, with her eternal sewing, by the fire and she rose as he entered. She gave a little startled cry, like a twittering bird, as she saw that it was he and she came towards him with her hand out. He did not look at the bed at all, but bent his eyes gravely upon his aunt.

"Please, aunt--you must leave us--I want to speak to my mother."

"No--Peter--how could you? I daren't--I mustn't--your father--your mother is asleep," and then, from behind them, there came a very soft voice--

"No--let us be alone--please, Jessie."

Peter did not, even then, turn round to the bed, but fixed his eyes on his aunt.

"The doctor--" she gasped, and then, with frightened eyes, she picked up her sewing and crept out.

Then he turned round and faced the bed, and was suddenly smitten with great shyness at the sight of that white, tired face, and the black hair about the pillow.

"Well, mother," he said, stupidly.

But she smiled back at him, and although her voice was very small and faint, she spoke cheerfully and as though this were an ordinary event.

"Well, you've come to see me at last, Peter," she said.

"I mustn't stay long," he answered, gruffly, as he moved awkwardly towards the bed.

"Bring your chair close up to the bed--so--like that. You have never come to sit in here before. Peter, do you know that?"

"Yes, mother." He turned his eyes away and looked on to the floor.