stricken with the delirium of accumulation--accumulation--as he had
been. They had been caught in the rush and swirl of the great
maelstrom, and had been borne round and round in it, until having
grasped every coveted thing tossing upon its circling waters, they
themselves had been flung upon the shore with both hands full, the rocks
about them strewn with rich possessions, while they lay prostrate and
gazed at all life had brought with dull, hopeless, anguished eyes. He
knew--if the worst came to the worst--what would be said of him,
because he had heard it said of others. "He worked too hard--he worked
too hard." He was sick of hearing it. What was wrong with the world--
what was wrong with man, as Man--if work could break him like this? If
one believed in Deity, the living creature It breathed into being must
be a perfect thing--not one to be wearied, sickened, tortured by the
life Its breathing had created. A mere man would disdain to build a
thing so poor and incomplete. A mere human engineer who constructed an
engine whose workings were perpetually at fault--which went wrong when
called upon to do the labor it was made for--who would not scoff at it
and cast it aside as a piece of worthless bungling?

"Something is wrong," he muttered, lying flat upon his cross and staring
at the yellow haze which had crept through crannies in window-sashes
into the room. "Someone is wrong. Is it I--or You?"

His thin lips drew themselves back against his teeth in a mirthless
smile which was like a grin.

"Yes," he said. "I am pretty far gone. I am beginning to talk to
myself about God. Bryan did it just before he was taken to Dr.
Hewletts' place and cut his throat."