No one was responsible. But life, after that week, was for many
people in the town never quite the same again.
On the afternoon of Thursday, June 17, Ronder stood at the window of his
study and looked down upon the little orchard, the blazing flowers, the
red garden-wall, and the tree-tops on the descending hill, all glazed and
sparkling under the hot afternoon sun. As he looked down, seeing nothing,
sunk deeply in his own thoughts, he was aware of extreme moral and
spiritual discomfort. He moved back from the window, making with his
fingers a little gesture of discontent and irritation. He paced his room,
stopping absent-mindedly once and again to push in a book that protruded
from the shelves, staying to finger things on his writing-table, jolting
against a chair with his foot as he moved. At last he flung himself into
his deep leather chair and stared fixedly at an old faded silk fire-guard,
with its shadowy flowers and dim purple silk, seeing it not at all.
He was angry, and of all things in the world that he hated, he hated most
to be that. He had been angry now for several weeks, and, as though it had
been a heavy cold that had descended upon him, he woke up every morning
expecting to find that his anger had departed--but it had not departed; it
showed no signs whatever of departing.
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