With a sigh that was almost audible the father turned away. At the door he glanced back, having noted the intense warmth of the room. The nurse, as many of her tropical race are apt to do, had forgotten to ventilate the chamber. The two windows were closed. Angrily he crept across the carpeted floor and noiselessly raised the sashes as high as they would go, feeling the fresh air stream in. With a parting glance at the sleeper he withdrew.
Descending the stairs, he went out on the lawn again. Even that scrap of Nature's realm had a tendency to soothe his snarled sensibilities. It might have been the dew which was rising and cooling his feet, or the pale, blinking stars, the sedative rays of which seemed to penetrate to his seething brain. He remembered John Leach's sermon that day in the mountains at the cross-roads store. The fellow had found something. He had found the way of the life spiritual, and it had come to him through sin, suffering, humiliation, and final self- immolation. Mostyn recalled the resolutions he had made under the influence of the man's compelling eloquence; he recalled the breaking of the resolutions. He thought of Dolly Drake, and groaned in actual pain of body and soul. He told himself that he had then deliberately trampled under foot his last spiritual opportunity. "Dolly Drake, Dolly Drake!" the words, unuttered though they were by lips which he felt were too profane for such use, seemed to float like notes of accusing music. Saunders had said she was more beautiful than ever. She might have been his but for his weakness. Perhaps she still thought of him now and then. If she could know of this unconquerable despair, she would pity him. How sweet such pity as hers would be! A sob struggled up within him and threatened to burst; he felt the sharp pain of suppression in his breast. It was as if his soul was urging his too-callous body to weep. Dolly was as unobtainable as the heaven of the tramp preacher's vision. For Mostyn only protracted evil was now available, and that was sickening to his very thought.
He wondered, seeing that it was now ten o'clock, if he could go to sleep. In deep sleep he would be able to forget. He decided to try. He went up to his room, and, aided only by the moonlight, which fell through the windows, he undressed and threw himself down on his bed. For an hour he was wakeful. He was just becoming drowsy when he heard voices in the nursery across the hall. He recognized the sharp, scolding voice of the nurse, and the timid reply of the child. Rising, Mostyn went to the open door of the nursery and looked in.