The first Howat and Jasper, striking contemptuously across the barriers of social morals, lived in Mariana, alone with James Polder in illegitimate circumstance, and in himself—­an old man without family, without the supporting memory of actual achievement; the negative decay of a negative existence.  His mind, confronted by a painful complexity of unanswerable problems, failed utterly.  He was conscious of his impotence chilling his blood, deadening his nerves.  Thin tears fell over his hollow cheeks; and he rose shakily, fiercely dragging at his bandanna.

But he discovered that his hand was numb with cold.  The fire lay black and dead.  The shrilling wind, ladened with snow, wrenched at the shutters.  The room was bitter.  He must get up to bed ... warm blankets.  A chill touched him with an icy breath.  It overtook him midway on the stair, and he clung to the railing, appalled at its violence in his fragile being.  He got, finally, to his room, to the edge of his bed, where he sat waiting for the assault to subside.  He wanted Rudolph, but the effort to move to the door, call, appeared insuperable.  The chill left him; and blundering, hideously delayed, he wrapped himself in the bed covering.

Not all the wool in the world, he thought, would be sufficient to drive the cold from his body.  He fell into a temporary exhaustion of sleep; but was waked later by sharp and oppressive pains in his chest, deepening when he breathed.  The suffering must be mastered, and he lay with gripping hands, striving by force of will to overcome what he thought of as the brutal play of small, sharp knives.  He conquered, it seemed; the pain grew less; but it had left an increasing difficulty in his breathing; it was a labour to absorb sufficient air even for his small, aged demands.  Sleep deserted him; and he waited through seeming years for the delayed appearance of dawn.  He had hoped that the new day would be sunny, warm; it was overcast, he could see the snow drifted in the lower window panes.

Rudolph usually knocked at the door at half past eight; but, apparently, to-day he had forgot.  Howat Penny’s watch lay on the table, at his hand, yet it was far distant; he couldn’t face the heavy effort of its inspection.  At last the man came in with his even morning greeting.  Howat was so exhausted that he could make no reply; and Rudolph moved silently to the bedside.  His expression, for an instant, was deeply concerned.  “I have a cold, or something of the sort,” the other said.  He raised his head, but sank back, with a thin, audible inspiration.  “It would be best, sir, to have the doctor from Jaffa,” the servant suggested.  Howat, in the midst of protest, closed his eyes; the pain had returned.  When he had again defeated it Rudolph was gone.