The door of his apartment was ajar. I could see him. He was in his pajamas now, apparently asleep. So I closed the door and sat at his desk in the work room outside to call up Mordecai, who had asked me to communicate with him, and attend to some other matters. Presently the hall door opened and closed gently. I looked around. It was Gram’ma Galt. In her hand she carried a large envelope tied around with a blue ribbon. She walked straight to the door of Galt’s apartment and went in without knocking. I could see her from where I sat. She left the door open behind her.
“What’s this?” Galt asked, as she put the envelope on the bed beside him. She did not answer his question, but leaned over, laid one hand on his forehead and spoke in this delphic manner:
“Fast ye for strife and smite with the fist of wickedness.”
Then she turned, came straight out, closed the door carefully, passed me without a glance, and was gone. Never again did I wonder whence Galt derived his thirst for combat. When he emerged some ten minutes later the mist had fallen from his eyes. The right doctor had been there. He handed me the envelope tied around with blue ribbon.
“That’s Gram’ma Galt’s little fortune ... everything she has received out of Great Midwestern. Keep it in the safe for a few days so she will think we needed it.... Did you give out that statement?”
“Not yet. There is plenty of time,” I said.
“Tear it up. That isn’t the way we fight, ... is it?”
Gram’ma Galt never got her envelope back. Two weeks later she died.
v
The Galt panic was one of those episodes that can never be fully explained. Elemental forces were loose. Those that derived from human passion were answerable to the will; there were others of a visitant nature fortuitous and uncontrollable. What man cannot control he may sometimes conduct. You cannot command the lightning, but if it is about to strike you may lure it here instead of there.