That night RoBards slept apart from his wife—in the spare room. He owed that much to his wrongs and she dared not try to wheedle him into the dangerous neighborhood of her beauty.
But first they heard the children’s prayers together. It was bitter to hear their sleepy voices asking forgiveness for their tiny sins and murmuring, “God bless Mamma and Papa and Mister Chalender! Amen!” Then the wet little good-night kisses scalded the cheeks of the divided parents who leaned across the cradles as across coffins and waited till sleep carried their babes away to the huge nursery of night. Then they parted without a word, without the challenge of a look.
He slept, too. All night he slept, better than ever. His strength had been shattered in a moment as if a bolt of lightning had riven him. He was a dead man until the morning brought resurrection and the problems of the daylight.
The first thing he heard was a loud shout:
“Jump her, boys! jump her! No water! There’s no water! We’ve got to get some gunpowder! Up she goes! Down she comes!”
It was Harry Chalender in a delirium fighting the Great Fire again. His frenzy gave him the horrible sanctity of the insane.
The doctor came over after breakfast. He shook his head. The wound was dangerous: the pick-blade had made an ugly gouge and gangrene might set in. There was pus in the wound. There was fever, of course, high, racking fever that fried his flesh till the very skin seemed to crackle.
RoBards had not expected to go back to town for several days. He had needed the cool remoteness of his farm. But now the solitude was like that uttermost calm into which the angels fell and made it Pandemonium. Now the place was crowded with invisible devils gibbering at him, shaking their horned heads over him in hilarious contempt, tempting him to everything desperate.
He made an excuse to Patty that he had to return to the city. He spoke to her with the coldest formality. She made no effort to detain him, but this was plainly not from indifference, for she answered like a condemned prisoner in the dock.
“All right, Mist’ RoBards. I understand.”