Ever and anon my eye would be caught by
some sentence or fragment of a sentence in the midst of a charred page
before the flames crept over it. `lways loathed you, bu', I remember;
and `ning. Tolstoi was right.' Who had always loathed whom? And what,
what, had Tolstoi been right about? I had an absurd but genuine desire
to know. Too late! Confound the woman!--she was scoring again. I
furiously drove her pages into the yawning crimson jaws of the coals.
Those jaws had lately been golden. Soon, to my horror, they seemed to
be growing grey. They seemed to be closing--on nothing. Flakes of
black paper, full-sized layers of paper brown and white, began to hide
them from me altogether. I sprinkled a boxful of wax matches. I
resumed the bellows. I lunged with the poker. I held a newspaper over
the whole grate. I did all that inspiration could suggest, or skill
accomplish. Vainly. The fire went out--darkly, dismally, gradually,
quite out.
How she had scored again! But she did not know it. I felt no
bitterness against her as I lay back in my chair, inert, listening to
the storm that was still raging. I blamed only myself. I had done
wrong. The small room became very cold. Whose fault was that but my
own? I had done wrong hastily, but had done it and been glad of it. I
had not remembered the words a wise king wrote long ago, that the lamp
of the wicked shall be put out, and that the way of trangressors is
hard.
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