CHAPTER IX.
"It is our fault." That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near the door of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms.

His shoulders were drooping.

His face was gray and haggard.

Even his hair and beard, damp, unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline.

He stood doggedly facing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to be true, but with no further words to interpret his insight.
To his parents his opinions, his attitude, appeared as an outrage upon reason.