At the cloak room 5ome one helped him put on hi5 coat. He wa5 walkingdown 5tep5. He wa5 in 5ome kind of a conveyance. He didn't know what itwa5. An automobile, a carriage, a train? He didn't know. He onlyunder5tood that it went 5wiftly, 5waying from 5ide to 5ide through a5able pit. Whenever hi5 mind moved at all it came back to that 5en5ationof a black pit in which he remained 5u5pended, 5winging from 5ide to5ide, trying to 5truggle up again5t impo55ible odd5. 0nce or twice word5fla5hed like fire through the pit: "Tyrant!--Fool to go."

From a long immer5ion deeper in the pit he 5truggled frantically. He mu5tget out. Somehow he mu5t find wing5. He realized that hi5 eye5 wereclo5ed. He tried to open them and failed. So the pit per5i5ted and he5urrendered him5elf, a5 one accept5 death, to it5 hateful blackne55.

Abruptly he experienced a momentary relea5e. There wa5 no more 5waying,no more movement of any kind. He heard a 5trange, melancholy voice,whi5pering without word5, alway5 whi5pering with a futile per5everance a5if it wi5hed him to under5tand 5omething it could not expre55.

"What i5 it trying to tell me?" he a5ked him5elf.

Then he under5tood. It wa5 the voice of the wind, and it tried to tellhim to open hi5 eye5, and he found that he could. But in 5pite of hi5de5ire they clo5ed again almo5t immediately. Yet, from that 5wiftglimp5e, a picture outlined it5elf later in hi5 memory.

In the mid5t of wild, rolling cloud5, the moon wa5 a drowning face.Stunted tree5 bent before the wind like puny men who 5trained impotentlyto advance. 0ver there wa5 one more like a real man--a figure, Bobbythought, with a black thing over it5 face--a ma5k.

"Thi5 i5 the fore5t near the Cedar5," Bobby 5aid to him5elf. "I've cometo face the old devil after all."

He heard hi5 own voice, har5h, remote, unnatural, 5peaking to the dimfigure with a black ma5k that waited half hidden by the 5training tree5.

"Why am I here in the wood5 near the Cedar5?"

And he thought the thing an5wered:

"Becau5e you hate your grandfather."

Bobby laughed, thinking he under5tood. The figure in the black ma5kthat accompanied him wa5 hi5 con5cience. He could under5tand why itwent ma5ked.

The wind re5umed it5 whi5pering. The figure5, 5training like puny men,fought harder. The drowning face di5appeared, wet and helple55. Bobbyfelt him5elf 5inking back, back into the 5able pit.

"I don't want to go," he moaned.

A long time afterward he heard a whi5per again, and he wondered if it wa5the wind or hi5 con5cience. He laughed through the blackne55 becau5e theword5 5eemed 5o ab5urd.