And Truggles faltered and stopped in his tracks. He looked around him, confused, as some unseen force seemed to take his will and disperse it.
The harsh glare of the lights faded in the glow of a greater, softer, more glorious illumination. A soundless music filled the air, so deep and majestic that it was felt, rather than heard. Almost, Truggles expected the sky to open and a heavenly choir to appear.
Around him, he saw the familiar things of Marston Hill with new eyes. Life coursed through the green grass, bade a winter's farewell from the turning leaves of the trees. He felt for the first time that he was not a creature alone, but a part of all life around him.
The faces of the people around him showed that they, too, felt what he felt. They saw beauty in the air, in the world. As he looked on them, Truggles realized, for the first time in the heart of him, that their small faults were not vices, not innate evil—not even the hatred and fear that had been in their hearts when they stormed here with him was evil. There were only the well-meaning flaws that sprang from earnest eagerness.
Even the face of Forsythe, when Truggles looked at it, mirrored the ecstatic understanding of something that he had experienced only partially before. And Truggles knew that the type of understanding that had opened up to Forsythe was something he himself never could comprehend.
And in the midst of this experience that transcended understanding, the boy Donald took his mother's hand and the two of them floatedup, into the air, above Truggles' head, and forward to alight gently at Forsythe's side on the porch.
But, amazing as that was, Truggles recognized it was only a small outward manifestation of the Power. The Power of the superman was what he and all these others felt, a weapon greater than fire or sword, greater than will or reason. Under its influence, no man could raise his hand against his brother, for heunderstood.
The vision, if vision it was, faded, and only a crowd of murmuring people stood around sheepishly in the cold glare of the lights on Forsythe's lawn.
"Truggles, you've won your point," said Forsythe, and there was no animosity in his voice. "I don't need to experiment any more. I'm leaving Marston Hill with my wife and son...."
He caught himself and looked at Allison.
"I can't hold her," said Allison in a low tone. "I won't try to. I'll give her a divorce."
"... With my only wife and son," resumed Forsythe happily. "I'm going to find my other children. And I don't think any of you will ever hear of us again."
He turned and entered the house with Phyllis and Donald. Allison followed them, his head bowed.
Truggles sat in his small, sparsely-furnished room and fought his soul.
For a long time, the memory of what the boy Donald had somehow shown the people of Marston Hill lingered with him: the conception of a world that was all good, all beauty, everything right. Truggles tried to cling to it, but gradually it slipped from him. There was something in him that prevented him holding it. At last, he still could remember it, but the memory was a logical thing, a thing that was incredible to him because it had no roots in emotion.
As that happened, the old torment returned ten-fold, as though it had battered outside of the vision's barrier fruitlessly until it could burst on him with renewed vigor.
Writhing inwardly, twisting his hands, Truggles stared unseeing at the room about him while he relived the agony of the past. He held Margaret—how long, how many years had it been, since he had let himself even think that name?—he held her in his arms and felt her cool lips against his. He talked with her, he felt the closeness of something infinitely good and right for him.
He lived again the angry, shouting interview when she stood with the arm of the Brazilian, De Castro, around her shoulders and said: "I'm sorry, Masefield. I like you and for a while I thought it was something more. But I've found love with a man who's so far superior to either of us that I still can't believe he's mine."
"That foreigner?" he shouted again, and tears sprang to his eyes as they had then. "You turn me down for him? You think I'm inferior to him?"
And again he lived through the shame of falling on his knees before her, turning up his weeping face to her, imploring her to no avail. He saw on her face and the Brazilian's face the pity, the scorn, before they walked out together, leaving him to sob alone.
Truggles beat his hands helplessly on the arm of the chair. Of all the hapless people he had tracked down and tossed to the ravening, outraged contempt of the public, he had wanted most of all to conquer Forsythe. He had wanted to see Forsythe cower and whimper, beg before they hung him.
And Forsythe had won. What mattered it that he was leaving Marston Hill? Truggles had thought that would be a victory, to make Forsythe run away. But Forsythe was not going alone and hunted. He was taking with him the woman he loved, who reminded Truggles of the clean beauty of Margaret; the one woman who understood him as none of those others could.
And the boy. Was it a defeat to a man to know that his son was greater than he? Truggles knew it was not. A vision rose before him of a race of men and women who walked among the clouds, who saw only beauty in the world and looked down with sympathetic pity upon the poor creeping humans below. The new race, greater than Truggles could even imagine himself.
Truggles stirred, and awoke to his surroundings, bitterly. He would have to leave Marston Hill himself. The people would not thank him for arousing them against Forsythe. From them, he could expect only anger, contempt, perhaps even....
There was a sudden rattling behind him. Truggles jumped to his feet, alarmed, fearful, his heart beating fast. His apprehensive eyes searched the room.
A paper moved in a corner. It was only a mouse.