that it was Christmas morning. He walked in the middle of the roadway,
in four inches of snow, and kept his gaze fixed rather intently on the
big house at the top of the avenue.

Mr. Force had not slept well. Indeed, he had not slept at all. The
shock he had received early in the evening was of the kind that
shatters one's peace of mind to a degree but little short of
calamitous. A plunge into ice-cold water would have failed to produce
the deadly chill that crept over him when he heard the name of Glenn.
How he succeeded in controlling himself so well that his profound
agitation escaped the attention of the others, he could not explain.
He was amazed to find that he had managed it so well. For, it must be
confessed, Mr. Force's habitual equanimity had undergone a strain that
came so near to resulting in a collapse that only a miracle--(it may
have taken the form of stupefaction, or a kindly paralysis)--only a
miracle could have kept him from betraying the one great secret of his
life.

Ordinarily, he would have put off calling on the Bingles for a month
or six weeks, being that scornful of social amenities; but he could
hardly wait for the approach of sunrise to be on his way to Seafood on
this brilliant Christmas morning. It was not a brilliant, shimmering
day for him, however. He saw nothing beautiful in the steel-blue sky:
to him it was a drab, unlovely pall. He saw no beauty in the snow-clad
foliage, no splendour in the bejewelled tree-tops, no purity in the
veil of white that lay upon the face of the earth. He saw only
himself, and he was a drear, bleak thing as viewed introspectively.

Nor is it to be taken for granted that Mr. Bingle slept well on this
night before Christmas. Neither he nor his wife went to bed until far