The father faced annihilation. He must disappear--disappear from living, or he must find a channel for this surge of wrath. He found it since he was strong. Never had he been beaten in his home. But he had been beaten by life. The process was old with him. When life cast him out he prayed. He avenged himself on the nations of men and women who refused to be his. He sent them living into Hell. He avenged himself on the pitiful bitter hurt--on the remoteness--of Beauty. He called it Sin. Sweetly he escorted men and women and the burden of love into Hell with his prayers. “Daughter,” he said, “you have committed sins that make me know the helplessness of intercession.” He was gone.... Tom was down with his head in his two hands, crying. Cornelia bent over him, smoothed his hair, kissed his wet face feverishly since she needed to do something with her tingling body. Her nerves leaped with strain. Deep down, something was alive. “Tom,--Tom,” she whispered, “Don’t! I’m glad. Aren’t you glad?... It had to be. It is good....” The boy looked up: he saw in his sister’s face what he felt in his heart--their life had died, their world had foundered. “We’d better go,” said Cornelia. “You know what I mean. Life at home--after this?” She shook her head, her eyes closed. Tom sat on his rock. He knew it was his turn. He knew he sat there, a child. He knew he must rise, a man. Never without Cornelia would he have dared, could he have found strength or direction. But could he fail of her challenge? Could he be a drag on her strength? She stood, her eyes shut, over him, touching his hair. “I can’t imagine it,” she said. Still he sat. His eyes were open. They saw the mangled model of clay. He got up. “We’ll go,” he said. “We’ll go East. We’ll go to New York! I’ll work. I’ll find work. You’ll have a chance to study.” The blue mist of night grew between them as they faced each other. “Tom----” she faltered now. “Why not?” her faltering nerved him. “I can do anything.... You, sister, you’ve got to be an artist--a great artist. Wait and see.” “Do you mean it, Tom?” He was sober,--like a panting young creature after a race for life. “I never meant anything before. We’re going.... We’re going to-night.” They clung heart to heart like lovers.... Curtin Rennard returned to the house and sent them all--who were there--to their rooms. Laura asked after the absent Cornelia and Tom. He struck her. The household slept in a silence like black in which many colors are lost. Within this silence came Tom and Cornelia. Two candles burned in the room of Ruth. She sat on her bed. Her brother and sister stood. She was in her nightgown, a fat miserable woman of twenty-seven. Her body, folding and breathing, seemed a part of the heavy matting, of the rugose cover, of the thin sheet. She was stout and her voice was thin. She had fat wide arms and her nose was sharp and thin. She twirled her misshapen toes. “Come along with us, Ruth,” said Cornelia. “I can’t.”