Jim entered. Nobody except himself, his nieces, and Joe Beecher ever knew exactly what happened, what was the aspect of the door-mat erected to human life, of the worm turned to menace. It must have savored of horror, as do all meek and downtrodden things when they gain, driven to bay, the strength to do battle. It must have savored of the god-like, when the man who had borne with patience, dignity, and sorrow for them the stings of lesser things because they were lesser things, at last arose and revealed himself superior, with a great height of the spirit, with the power to crush. When Jim stopped talking and went home, two pale, shocked faces of women gazed after him from the windows. Joe Beecher was sobbing like a child. Finally his wife turned her frightened face upon him, glad to have still some one to intimidate. “For goodness' sake, Joe Beecher, stop crying like a baby,” said she, but she spoke in a queer whisper, for her lips were stiff. Joe stood up and made for the door. “Where are you going?” asked his wife. “Going to get a job somewhere,” replied Joe, and went. Soon the women saw him driving a neighbor's cart up the street. “He's going to cart gravel for John Leach's new sidewalk!” gasped Alma. “Why don't you stop him?” cried her sister. “You can't have your husband driving a tip-cart for John Leach. Stop him, Alma!” “I can't stop him,” moaned Alma. “I don't feel as if I could stop anything.” Her sister gazed at her, and the same expression was on both faces, making them more than sisters of the flesh. Both saw before them a stern boundary wall against which they might press in vain for the rest of their lives, and both saw the same sins of their hearts. Meantime Jim Bennet was seated in his best parlor and Susan Adkins was whispering to Mrs. Trimmer out in the kitchen. “I don't know whether he's gone stark, staring mad or not,” whispered Susan, “but he's in the parlor smoking his worst old pipe, and that big tiger tommy is sitting in his lap, and he's let in all the other cats, and they're nosing round, and I don't dare drive 'em out. I took up the broom, then I put it away again. I never knew Mr. Bennet to act so. I can't think what's got into him.” “Did he say anything?”