inherent with him made him resent, refuse soberly to consider any
deviation from the purpose which had taken form with such bitter
intensity when he kindled to his father's account of those drab years
which Horace Gower had laid upon him.

Jack MacRae was no angel. Under his outward seeming his impulses were
primitive, like the impulses of all strong men. He nursed a vision of
beating Gower at Gower's own game. He hugged to himself the ultimate
satisfaction of that. Even when he was dreaming of Betty, he was
mentally setting her aside until he had beaten her father to his knees
under the only sort of blows he could deal. Until he had made Gower know
grief and disappointment and helplessness, and driven him off the south
end of Squitty landless and powerless, he would go on as he had elected.
When he got this far Jack would sometimes say to himself in a spirit of
defiant recklessness that there were plenty of other women for whom
ultimately he could care as much. But he knew also that he would not say
that, nor even think it, whenever Betty Gower was within reach of his
hand or sound of his voice.

He walked sometimes over to Point Old and stared at the cottage, snowy
white against the tender green, its lawn growing rank with uncut grass,
its chimney dead. There were times when he wished he could see smoke
lifting from that chimney and know that he could find Betty somewhere
along the beach. But these were only times when his spirits were very
low.

Also he occasionally wondered if it were true, as Stubby Abbott
declared, that Gower had fallen into a financial hole. MacRae doubted
that. Men like Gower always got out of a hole. They were fierce and
remorseless pursuers of the main chance. When they were cast down they