"Or what?" he sneered. "Or I'll give you a whipping like a little child." Edgar drew close to her and merely laughed sardonically. With that her hand was out and had struck his face. Edgar gave a little outcry, and, like a drowning man, with a dull rushing in his ears and flickerings in his eyes, he struck out blindly with both fists. He felt he encountered something soft, a face, heard a cry.... The cry brought him to his senses. Suddenly he saw himself and his monstrous act--he had struck his own mother. A dreadful terror came upon him, shame and horror, an impetuous need to get away seized him, to sink into the earth; he wanted to fly far away, far away from those eyes that were upon him. He made for the door and in an instant was gone, down the stairs, through the lobby, out on the road. Away, away, as though a pack of ravening beasts were at his heels. CHAPTER XIII DAWNING PERCEPTION After he had put a long stretch of road between him and the hotel, Edgar stopped running. He was panting heavily, and he had to lean against a tree to get his breath back and recover from the trembling of his knees. The horror of his own deed, from which he had been fleeing, clutched at his throat and shook him as with a fever. What should he do now? Where should he run away to? He was already feeling a sinking sensation of loneliness, there in the woods, only a mile or so from the house. Everything seemed different, unfriendlier, unkinder, now that he was alone and helpless. The trees that only the day before had whispered to him like brothers now gathered together darkly as if in threat. This solitariness in the great unknown world dazed the child. No, he could not stand alone yet. But to whom should he go? Of his father, who was easily excited and unapproachable, he was afraid. Besides, his father would send him straight back to his mother, and Edgar preferred the awfulness of the unknown to that. He felt as though he could never look upon his mother's face again without remembering that he had struck her with his fist. His grandmother in Bains occurred to him. She was so sweet and kind and had always petted him and come to his rescue when, at home, he was to be the victim of an injustice. He would stay with her until the first storm of wrath had blown over, and then he would write to his parents to ask their forgiveness. In this brief quarter of an hour he had already been so humbled by the mere thought of his inexperienced self standing alone in the world that he cursed the stupid pride that a mere stranger's lying had put into him. He no longer wanted to be anything but the child he had been, obedient and patient and without the arrogance that he now felt to be excessive.