It is with some reluctance that I begin these chapters dealing with the most terrible event in Jerry's life, and for that matter the most terrible experience in my own, for as the reader of this history must now be aware, Jerry's life was mine. I had made him, molded him for good or ill according to my own definite plan, by the results of which I had professed myself willing to stand whatever came. Had I known what these results were to be, it would have been better if I had cast myself into the sea than have come to Horsham Manor as Jerry's preceptor, the sponsor for old Benham's theory. But human wisdom is fallible, true virtue a dream. Dust we are and to dust return, groveling meanwhile as best we may, amid the wreck of our illusions. It costs me something to admit the failure of the Great Experiment, its horrible and tragic failure! To lose a hand, an eye, a limb, to be withered by disease, one can replace, repair, renew; but an ideal, a system of philosophy, ingrained into one's very life! It is this that scars and withers the soul. I must go on, for, after all, it is not my soul that matters, but Jerry's. It was quite an hour after Jerry disappeared before I began to suspect that he had gone to Briar Hills. The last I had seen of him was when he was on his way up the stair to his own room. But when I sought him there a short while afterward, I could not find him, nor was he anywhere in the house. I questioned the servants, telephoned the garage. All the machines, including Jerry's own roadster, were in the building. I went out to question the gardeners and found a man who had seen Jerry awhile before, entering the path into the woods behind the house. Mr. Benham was hatless, the fellow said, and walked rapidly, his head bent. Even then I did not suspect where he was going. I thought that he had merely gone to "walk it off," a phrase we had for our own cure for the doldrums. But as the moments passed and he did not return, I took Jack into confidence, and expressed the fear that he had gone to Briar Hills for a reckoning with Marcia and Lloyd. A worried look came into Jack's face, but he shrugged his shoulders. "Let him. It's time. We can't do anything." "We might try." "What?" "Go there before damage is done, bring him home." "And make ourselves ridiculous." "Oh, that--! I don't care." "Well, _I_ do. You've got to let this problem work itself out, Pope. It's gone too far. He's on the brink of disillusionment. Let it come, no matter how or what." "But violence--!" "Let it come. Better a violence which may cure than this quiet madness that is eating his soul away." "But Lloyd! Jerry's strength! He might kill the brute." "Don't fear. If the man would fight Jerry might do him damage. But he'll run, Pope. You can't kill a bounder. The breed is resilient." "I'm afraid." "You needn't be. This is the turning point of his affair." "Perhaps. But in which way will it turn?" "Wait."