The
triumphs of the past failed for a moment to thrill his pulses. The
memory of his well-lived and successful life brought him not an atom of
consolation. The present was all that mattered, and the present had
brought him to the gates of failure.--After all, what did a man work
for, he wondered? What was the end and aim of it all? Life at
Martinhoe Manor, with a faithful but terrified manservant, bookshelves
ready to afford him the phantasmal satisfaction of another man's
thoughts, sea and winds, beauties of landscape and colour, to bring him
to the threshold of an epicurean pleasure which needed yet that one
pulsating link with humanity to yield the full meed of joy and content.
It all came back to the old story of man's weakness, he thought, as he
rose to his feet, his teeth almost savagely clenching his pipe. He had
become a conqueror of circumstances only to become a victim of the
primitive needs of life.
At about a quarter of a mile from the house, the road branched away to
the left to disappear suddenly over the edge of a drop of many hundreds
of feet.
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