He walked quickly down the stair and through the close turning of the
lower hall that led through a side door to the yard. A pale rectangle of
lamplight fell from the sitting room window over a brick path and ground
tramped bare of grass; a clinking of dishes sounded in the kitchen. The
sod was damp, and perhaps eight feet below the wooden buttress of the
land the water showed impenetrably black.

Safely there he passed a tense hand over a brow suddenly wet; he was
shaking as if in the grip of a chill. His condition needed drastic
measures. The cold heavy opium gave out its tantalizing odor. In a minute
it would be disposed of and he would go for more. He calculated that this
necessitated twenty trips at the present rate--a bag might serve his
purpose better. He raised an arm with an opium ball, but his hand
remained suspended in air. An inarticulate protest seized him, a
suffocating sense of impending loss. He would never be able to get Patna
opium here; it was a valuable medical property. His nerves shook at the
thought of its delights. Then as if without his volition and against
every intention, his arm described a short arc and his hand was empty.
There was the impact of a solid object striking the water, a faint ripple
on the motionless expanse, and then absolute silence.

He was aghast at his wanton act, the irreparable waste of a precious
substance, and cursed in a low audible Cantonese. Whose concern was it if
he did, very occasionally, smoke a "pistol"? How could it possibly
matter! The dreams about a great foreign commerce, a white house like the
Ammidons', were futile; it was too late. He could expect nothing from
life but the unspeakable monotony of his father's dwelling, the bare
office. He had worked hard, been as full of splendid early resolutions as
anyone, and he wasn't blamable if chance balked his ambition. A soul was
nothing more than a twisting leaf in the wind of fate. There remained