On the verge of oblivion and the end, he had been
snatched back by relenting Fate, which requires something for something
given, when laws are overridden and doom defeated. Yes, the price he was
meant to pay was gratitude to one of shrivelled soul and innate
antipathy; and he had not been man enough to see the trial through to the
end! With a little increased strain put upon his vanity and pride he had
run amuck. Like some heathen gladiator he had ravaged in the ring. He had
gone down into the basements of human life and there made a cockpit for
his animal rage, till, in the contest, brain and intellect had been
saturated by the fumes and sweat of fleshly fury.
How quiet the night was, how soothing to the fevered mind and body, how
the cool air laved the heated head and flushed the lungs of the rheum of
passion! He rode on and on, farther and farther away from home, his back
upon the scenes where his daily deeds were done. It was long past
midnight before he turned his horse's head again homeward.
Buried in his thoughts, now calm and determined, with a new life grown up
in him, a new strength different from the mastering force which gave him
a strength in the theatre like one in delirium, he noticed nothing.
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