The depression of the whole day settled upon Peter with the deepening
night. He held his poor light above his head and picked his way to his
own room. After the magnificence of the Renfrew manor, it had contracted
to a grimy little box lined with yellowed papers. His books were still
intact, but Henry Hooker would get them as part payment on the Dillihay
place, which Henry owned. On his little table still lay the pile of old
examination papers, lists of incoherent questions which somebody
somewhere imagined formed a test of human ability to meet and answer the
mysterious searchings of life.
Peter was familiar with the books; many of the questions he had learned
by rote, but the night and the crescent, and the thought of a pregnant
girl caged in the blackness of a jail filled his soul with a great
melancholy query to which he could find no answer.
CHAPTER XIX
Two voices talking, interrupting each other with ejaculations, after the
fashion of negroes under excitement, aroused Peter Siner from his sleep.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355