Presently Martin left, went to keep his brother company, and Charles resumed his plodding work in the young corn. He gave himself up to gloomy meditation. What a strange thing his life had been! How queer it was that nothing prior to his arrival there in the mountains now claimed his interest. William, Celeste, Ruth, old Boston friends, college chums, business associates--all had retired from his consciousness, almost as if they had never existed. The fortunes of this particular family wholly absorbed him. He could have embraced Martin while the boy was talking, because of his resemblance in voice and features to Mary. He respected Kenneth for his fresh resolutions, and pitied him as he had once pitied himself. His hoe tinkled like a bell, at times, on the small round stones buried in the mellow soil. The mountain breeze fanned his hot brow. Accidentally he cut down a young plant of corn, and all but shuddered as he wondered if it, too, could feel, think, and suffer. He saw a busy cluster of red ants, and left them undisturbed. They were sinking a shaft, he knew not how deep, in the earth. One by one they brought to the surface tiny bits of clay or sand, rolled them down a little embankment, and hurried away for other burdens. That they thought, planned, and calculated he could not doubt. He himself was a monster too great in size for their comprehension. Had he stepped upon them their universe would have gone out of existence. He wondered if they loved one another, if their social system would have permitted one of their number to go into voluntary exile and in that exile to find a joy never before comprehended. CHAPTER XVII Mary rode to house after house on her way to Carlin, but met with no success in the matter of borrowing money. It was near noon when she entered the straggling suburbs of the village. At a ramshackle livery-stable she dismounted and left her horse in the care of a negro attendant whose father had once been owned by her family. She called him "Pete"; he addressed her as "Young Miss," and was most obsequious in his attentions and profuse in promises to care for her horse. Opposite the hotel stood a tiny frame building having only one room. It was a lawyer's office, as was indicated by the sanded tin sign holding the gilt letters of the occupant's name--"Chester A. Lawton, At'y at Law." He was a young man under thirty, who had met Mary several times at the hotel when she was visiting Mrs. Quinby. He was seated at a bare table, reading a law-book, when she appeared at the open door. He had left off his coat, the weather being warm, and on seeing her he hastily got into it, flushing to the roots of his thick dark hair. "You caught me off my guard, Miss Mary," he apologized, awkwardly. "I know I oughtn't to sit here without my coat in plain view of the street, but the old lawyers do it, and--"