The fact that the way of the transgressor is hard, was being ground into the shrinking soul of Elijah. As yet, the grinding was of no avail because he refused to recognize that he was a transgressor. For years he had dreamed, and worked, and planned, and in it all he had been alone. Men would have called it alone, but not so Elijah. The Lord was with him. At least this was his fanatical belief. Alone, or with the still, small voice, not always interpreted aright, he had with infinite patience dreamed his dreams, wrought out his tasks as they came to him, and still alone, he had seen them shaping to a definite end. He had, like a solitary player, shuffled his cards, had dealt them and played in strict accordance with the game or modified them at will, and there was no one to say him nay. Even Amy had strengthened this growing habit of looking upon himself, his will and his desires as infallible. Unconsciously he had carried this inflexible attitude of mind into the game, when necessity had compelled him to admit partners. He resented the insistence of others, that they should be considered as having rights equal to his own. He demanded unconditional surrender, implicit obedience to his will. He reasoned with a sophistical show of right that the great idea was his, that what he gave was given in the fullness of his heart, and that it was only base ingratitude that prompted the recipients to oppose and thwart him. Winston had opposed and thwarted him in a thousand details, and though Elijah had outwardly yielded, he had not essentially changed, though he was learning many lessons. He had learned to distinguish between what Winston would accept and what he would reject, but involuntarily and unconsciously there was growing up within him a burning hatred of Ralph Winston. There was a seeming lack of sympathy in the rugged integrity of Winston that clove through the heart of things. Winston knew only north and south. If a needle swung to these points, it was right; if it did not, it was wrong, and he had no use for it. Elijah was growing jealous of Winston. He said nothing, but he noticed that, in the field especially, and to a certain extent in the office, details were more and more referred to Winston, even by Helen. Winston's name was on every tongue. It seemed to Elijah as if profit, and honor, and prestige were slipping from him and falling upon Winston. He was being defrauded. It never occurred to him that Winston's complete surrender of heart, and soul and mind to the successful fulfilment of his dreams, all testified far more strongly than honeyed words of praise to the worthiness of the idea which he had conceived.