even now that I had recognized that Fox and the others were of no account . . . What remained was to prove to her that I wasn't a mere chattel, a piece in the game. I was at the very heart of the thing. After all, it was chance that had put me there, the blind chance of all the little things that lead in the inevitable, the future. If, now, I thwarted her, she would . . . what would she do? She would have to begin all over again. She wouldn't want to be revenged; she wasn't revengeful. But how if she would never look upon me again?
The thing had reduced itself to a mere matter of policy. Or was it passion?
A clatter of the wheels of heavy carts and of the hoofs of heavy horses on granite struck like hammer blows on my ears, coming from the well of the court-yard below. Soane had finished his bottle and was walking to the cupboard. He paused at the window and stood looking down.
"Strong beggars, those porters," he said; "I couldn't carry that weight of paper—not with my rot on it, let alone Callan's. You'd think it would break down the carts."
I understood that they were loading the carts
[287]
