He had the useful gift of reading the minds of people in their faces.

From Carnac's face, from Carnac's mother's face, had come to him the real story.

He knew that Alma Grier had sinned only once and with him.

In the first days after that ill-starred month, he had gone to her, only to be repelled as a woman can repel whose soul has been shocked, whose self-respect has been shamed.
It had been as though she thrust out arms of infinite length to push him away, such had been the storm of her remorse, such the revulsion against herself and him.

So they had fallen apart, and he had seen his boy grow up independent, original, wilful, capable--a genius.