Indeed he had been a bad man, and yet she could not reconcile it all
with a wonderful something in him, a boldness, a sense of humour, an
everlasting energy, an electric power. She had never seen anyone
vitalize everything round him as John Grier had done. He threw things
from him like an exasperated giant; he drew things to him like an Angel
of the Covenant. To him life was less a problem than an experiment, and
this last act, this nameless repudiation of the laws of family life, was
like the sign of a chemist's activity. As she stood on the mountain-top
her breath suddenly came fast, and she caught her bosom with angry hands.
"Carnac--poor Carnac!" she exclaimed.
What would the world say? There were those, perhaps, who thought Carnac
almost a ne'er-do-well, but they were of the commercial world where John
Grier had been supreme.
At the same moment, Carnac in the garden of his old home beheld the river
too and the great expanse of country, saw the grey light of evening on
the distant hills, and listened to Fabian who condoled with him. When
Fabian had gone, Carnac sat down on a bench and thought over the whole
thing. Carnac had no quarrel with his fate. When in the old home on the
hill he had heard the will, it had surprised him, but it had not shocked
him. He had looked to be the discarded heir, and he knew it now without
rebellion.
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