"No ... but do come down and join us," I replied. * * * * * "I tell you, I thought it was burglars at first, and I was going to the drawer in Penton's room and get out his six-shooter." "Does Penton keep a gun?" I asked. "Yes ... it's the one he bought to shoot the mongrel dog with." * * * * * We ate some cold roast beef sandwiches and drank our coffee. Hildreth stayed in the big house, not going down the path with me. I went silently to my tent. It was blowing a little now. The moon was surging along behind little, grey, running clouds. It would rain before daylight. A haunted shiver swept through my back as I stole along the path. I repeated poetry rapidly aloud to crowd out uncanny imaginings. I had a silly, sick impulse to run back to the big house and sleep on the couch in the library. But I forced myself on. "If you're ever going to be a man, you'd better begin now," I muttered to myself, as if talking to another person. In my tent ... I lit the lamp. I removed all hanging objects because their lurching shadows sent shivers of apprehension through me.... "That damned coffee--wish I hadn't drunk it." * * * * * The wind and rain came up like a phantom army. It sang in the trees, it drummed musically on my tent. It comforted me. The floodgates of my mind, my inspiration, broke loose. I rose to my super-self. And now if a horrible thing had stood grey at my elbow, unmoved, I would have looked it unflinchingly in the sightless visage.... My pencil raced over paper ... raced and raced. "Here it comes ... just like your good rain, so kind to earth.... Oh, beautiful God, I thank Thee for making me a poet," I prayed, tears streaming down my face. * * * * * The second act of _Judas_ stood complete, as if it had written itself. I rose. It seemed hardly an hour had passed. It took me a few minutes to work the numbness out of my legs. How they ached! I stepped out of the tent-door like a drunken man ... fell on my face in some bushes and bled from several scratches. The blare of what was full daylight hurt my eyes. I had been writing on, entranced, by unneeded lamp, when unheeded day burned about me. Stepping inside again, I saw by my Ingersoll that it was twelve o'clock. I fell into a deep sleep, still dressed ... I was so exhausted. Usually I slept absolutely naked. * * * * * These were the things that happened while Penton was in jail because he played tennis on Sunday. * * * * *