He wanted to die now rather than make the choice. To kill Chalender would seem almost a lesser horror. But that also meant exposure to the public. The burial of Chalender would but throw open his own home like a broken grave. It was only a detail that Chalender had saved his life the night of the fire when RoBards could not climb back to the wharf and no one else heard or heeded him. To butcher a wounded man, guilty so ever; to strip a woman stark before the mob, evil so ever; to brand his children, to blotch his home with scandal—pure infamy! But, on the other hand, to spare a slimy reptile; to be the cheap victim of a woman’s duplicity; to leave his children to her foul ideals; to make his home a whited sepulcher—infamy again. He felt that the children must be first to be considered. But which way was their welfare to be sought? Then the children themselves ran in upon his swooning mind, Imogene and Keith. He felt their tendril fingers wrap about his inert hands. He heard their piping cries of welcome. He fell back from the door and was so weak, so sick that they easily pulled him to his knees and clambered on his back and beat him, commanding “Giddap!” and “Whoa, Dobbin!” The very attitude was a degradation. He was actually crawling, a brute beast on all fours with his young on his back. When he flung them off Keith bumped his head and began to cry, Immy to howl and boo-hoo! And they ran to their mother protesting that their Papa was mean, and hurted them. They turned to Chalender for protection. And this was Chalender’s first warning that RoBards had come home—home! what a dirtied word it was now—“home!” RoBards scrambled to his feet and dashed out of the intolerable place. Only the old tulip tree had dignity now. With a Brahmanic majesty it waved its long-sleeved arms above him and warned him that he must not let life drive him mad. His decision one way or the other did not matter much. Nothing he did or left undone mattered much. The leaves would come and go and come anew. The farmer was still striding along after his plough in a silhouette cut out against a scarlet west. Just one thing seemed important: the house pleaded with him not to dishonor it. It was older than he. It had cradled him. It had cradled his children. It wanted to cradle their children’s children. The lengthening shadow of the chimney had crept along the grass now till it lay like a soft coverlet on the beds of the little twain that had been lent him for a while. The very chimney had a soul of its own, and a good name. It seemed to implore him not to brand it as a place of evil resort. His knees gave way and he dropped to the ground, rendered idiot by the contradiction of his impulses. He saw old negro Cuff staring at him. The farmer’s wife paused at the back door to wonder. At an upper window Patty’s Teen leaned out to fix on him the white stare of her black face.