Other noises of the night reached him, but he did not hear them, for he had become lost in meditation.
What a home-coming! Bitterness settled into the marrow of his bones.

Here was ruin, desolation, darkness, for the returning prodigal.

These were the things his father had given him.

A murderous rage seized him, a lust to rend and destroy, and he sat erect in his chair, his muscles tensed, his blood rioting, his brain reeling.

Had his father appeared before him at this minute it would have gone hard with him.