The ground was like a boulder and the ax rang and glanced and sprinkled sparks of fire. Before he had made the trench deep enough, he had thrown aside his fur cap and his coat, and yet he glowed. At last he achieved the petty grave, and set the box in it, and heard the clods clatter on it; filled in and trampled down the shards of soil, and shoveled the snow upon that and made all as seemly as he could. It was not a job that a gravedigger would boast of, but it was his best. He gazed at the unmarked tomb of the anonymous wayfarer. There should have been some rite, but he could not find a prayer to fit the occasion or his own rebellious mood. He was so tired, so dog-tired in body and soul that he would have been glad to lie down in his own grave if somebody would have dug him one. He hobbled and slid back to the house, flung the ax and the shovel into the cellar from the top of the stairs, and went to bed. The next morning he would have sworn that the whole thing was delirium. At any rate, it was finished. But it was not finished. Immy woke at last and before her mind was out of the spell of the drug, her arms were groping for her baby, her breast was aching; and when she understood, her scream was like a lightning stroke in a snowstorm. RoBards could stand no more. He told Patty that she would have to face the ordeal. It was cowardly to leave her, but he must save his sanity or the whole family was ruined. As he left the house for the barn and the horse he kept there, he was glad to see that snow was fluttering again. That little mound needed more snow for its concealment. CHAPTER XXXIX When he reached New York, RoBards had to take his frozen hands to a physician, who managed to save them for him, though there were times when the anguishes that clawed them made him almost regret their possession. He was tempted to resign his judgeship, feeling that he was unworthy of the high bench, since he had committed crimes, and had been ready to commit others, and had on his soul crimes that he regretted not committing. But he lacked the courage or the folly to publish his true reasons for resigning and he could think of no pretexts. He solaced himself with the partially submerged scandals of other jurists, and wondered where a perfect soul could be found to act as judge if perfection were to be demanded. Even Christ had put to flight all of the accusers of the taken woman and had let her go free with a word of good advice. At times the memory of his own black revolt against the laws softened RoBards’ heart when he had before him men or women accused of sins, and he punished them with nothing more than a warning. At other times his own guilt made him merciless to the prisoners of discovery, and he struck out with the frenzy of a man in torment, or with the spirit of the college boys who hazed their juniors cruelly because they had themselves been hazed by their seniors.