Toward them he felt the
impulse of a maddened beast trampling hated things under foot. They
stood for lies--treachery--cheating--yes, contemptible cheating! It
was impossible for him to win. However he played, whichever way he
turned, he must lose. For he was Conniston, and she was Conniston's
sister, AND MUST BE TO THE END OF TIME.
Faintly, beyond the door, he heard Mary Josephine singing. Like a bit
of steel drawn to a tension his normal self snapped back into place.
His readjustment came with a lurch, a subtle sort of shock. His hands
unclenched, the tense lines in his face relaxed, and because that God
Almighty he had challenged had given to him an unquenchable humor, he
saw another thing where only smirking ghouls and hypocrites had rent
his brain with their fiendish exultations a moment before. It was
Conniston's face, suave, smiling, dying, triumphant over life, and
Conniston was saying, just as he had said up there in the cabin on the
Barren, with death reaching out a hand for him, "It's queer, old top,
devilish queer--and funny!"
Yes, it was funny if one looked at it right, and Keith found himself
swinging back into his old view-point. It was the hugest joke life had
ever played on him.
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