The Red Cloud chief., 1907-04-26

At any other moment he might have
pondered owe her nm of accept.
ing them-thc easy Indifference with
which she let him 20. But vastly
keener issues We're claiming his attcn-
ton, issues whose results were wide
and black.
lie left the thcater and, refusing the
OvertureS of cabmcn. set hihISelf 10
walk to Chilcote's house. Ills face
was hard and CmOtionlcSS AZ he hur.
ricd forward, but the chaos in his mind
found expression in the unevpnncSS of
his pace. TO Il strong man the con
fronting of difficulties is never alarm
ing and is often fraught with inSpira-
ton, but this applies essentially to the
difficulties evolved through the weak
ness, the folly or the force of another:
when they arise from within the mat
ter Is of another character. II is in
presence Of his own soul. and in that
presence alone, that n man may truly
measure himself.
As Loder walked onward, treading
the whole familiar length of traffic
filed street. he realized for the first
time that he was standing before that
solemn tribunal-that the hour had
come when he must answer to himself
for himself. The longer and deeper an
oblivion the more painful the awaken
ing. For months the song of self had
beaten about his ears, deadening all
other sounds: now abruptly that Ong
had ceased. not considerably. not lin
g%eringly, but with n ~suddenness that
made the succeeding silence very ter
rible.
He walked onward. keeping his di-
rection unsceingly. He was passing
through the fire MS surely rs though
actual flames rose about his feet, and
whatever the result. whatever the fiber
of the man who emerged from the or
deal. the John LOder who had hewn
Ais way through the past weeks would
exist no more. The triumphant cgotist,
the strong man who by his W
strength had kept his eyes upon one
point, refusing to see in other direc-
tons, had ceased to he.
Keen though it was. his realization
OF this crisis in his life had come with
characteristic slowness. When Lillian
AStrupp had given her dictum, when
the music of the orchestra had ceased
and the curtain risen on the second act
Of the play, nothing but n sense Of
Stupefaction had filled his mind. In
that moment the great song was ST.
fenced, not by any portentous episode,
not by any incident that could have
lent dignity to its end, but. with the
fuIl n,nnsuro Of lifn's irnpN Inv a trivial
social commonplace. In the first sen
sation of blank loss his faculties had
heen numbed. In the quarter Of an
hour that followed the rise Of the cur
tain he had sat staring ut the stage.
seeing nothing, hearing nothing, fillc'
with the enormity of the void that sud
denly surrounded him. Then from
habit. from constitutional tendency. he
had begun slowly and perseveringly
10 draw first one thread and then an
other from the tangle of his thoughts,
10 forge with doubt and difficulty the
chain that was to draw him toward the
future.
1t was upon this same incomplete
and yet tenacious chain that his mind
worked as he traversed the familiar
streets and at last gained the house he
had so easily learned to call home.
As he inserted the ~latchkey and felt
il move smoothly in the lock a momen-
tary revolt against his own Judgment,
his W censorship, swung him sharply
toward reaction. But 1t Is only the
blind who can walk without n tremor
on the edge or an abyss, and there was
no longer a bandage across his eyes
The reaction flared up like a strip of
lighted paper; then. like a strip OF
lighted paper, 1t dropped back to ashes,
Ne pushed the door open and slowly
crossed the hall.
The mounting of a staircase Is often
The index to Il mans state of mind. AS
Lodcr assembled the stairs of Chilcote's
house his shoulders lacked their stiff
ness, his head was no longer erect. He
moved as though his feet were weight
Ell. He had ceased to be the man Of
achievement whose smallest opinion
compels consideration. In the privacy
of solitude he was the mere human fot-
SAM to which he had once compared
himself-the flotsam that, dreaming il
has found n harbor, wakes to find itself
tie prey of the incoming tide.
He paused at the head of the stairs to
rally his resolutions. Then, still walk
ing heavily, he passed down the CORR
dor to Ewes room. 1t was suggestive
Of his character that. having made his