"
The big Oriental lifted his face and looked out at the sweep of
country before the window.
"The thing went on, Excellency, the voice offering its lure, and
presenting it in brief flashes of materialization, and the Master
endeavoring to seize and detain the visitations, which ceased
instantly at his approach to the hearth."
The man paused.
"I knew the Master contended in vain against the thing; if he
would acquire possession of what it offered, he must destroy what
the creative forces of the spirit had released to him."
Again he paused.
"Toward morning he went out of the house. I could hear him
walking on the gravel before the door. He would walk the full
length of the house and return. The night was clear; there was a
chill in it, and every sound was audible.
"That was all, Excellency. The Master returned a little later
and ascended to his bedroom as usual."
Then he added:
"It was when I went in to put wood on the fire that I saw the
footprint on the hearth."
There was a force, compelling and vivid, in these meager details,
the severe suppression of things, big and tragic. No elaboration
could have equaled, in effect, the virtue of this restraint.
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