"He's a prodigal himself, it seems. Very well, let prodigal pay for prodigal."
She could not breathe freely--she could only look at Magnus in speechless surprise. He took up the bottle again and gulped clown the last of the liquor.
"He has drunk a good deal--he will sleep heavily--and he won't awake until the auction is over."
"Let us go to bed," said Anna.
"Go yourself," he growled, for the furies that march in the brain of the drunken man had mastered him.
"Magnus," said Anna, "if you will not go to bed I shall stay up all night with you."
Then the devil that had changed Magnus into a cunning, savage beast, showed him what he had to do.
"Very well, let us go to bed," he replied.
He bolted the outer door again and raked out the stove, while his mother extinguished the lamp and re-lit the candles. She thought the evil impulse that had come to him had been conquered, and she talked of other matters.
"I've made up Eric's bed for you, and you'll find everything comfortable," she said.