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The
night
before
this
,
after
Magnus
and
his
wife
had
gone
to
bed
,
they
had
lain
awake
for
hours
,
staring
up
into
the
dark
,
talking
,
talking
.
Magnus
had
not
long
been
able
to
keep
from
his
wife
the
news
of
the
coalition
that
was
forming
against
the
railroad
,
nor
the
fact
that
this
coalition
was
determined
to
gain
its
ends
by
any
means
at
its
command
.
He
had
told
her
of
Osterman
’
s
scheme
of
a
fraudulent
election
to
seat
a
Board
of
Railroad
Commissioners
,
who
should
be
nominees
of
the
farming
interests
.
Magnus
and
his
wife
had
talked
this
matter
over
and
over
again
;
and
the
same
discussion
,
begun
immediately
after
supper
the
evening
before
,
had
lasted
till
far
into
the
night
.
At
once
,
Annie
Derrick
had
been
seized
with
a
sudden
terror
lest
Magnus
,
after
all
,
should
allow
himself
to
be
persuaded
;
should
yield
to
the
pressure
that
was
every
day
growing
stronger
.
None
better
than
she
knew
the
iron
integrity
of
her
husband
’
s
character
.
None
better
than
she
remembered
how
his
dearest
ambition
,
that
of
political
preferment
,
had
been
thwarted
by
his
refusal
to
truckle
,
to
connive
,
to
compromise
with
his
ideas
of
right
.
Now
,
at
last
,
there
seemed
to
be
a
change
.
Long
continued
oppression
,
petty
tyranny
,
injustice
and
extortion
had
driven
him
to
exasperation
.
S
.
Behrman
’
s
insults
still
rankled
.
He
seemed
nearly
ready
to
countenance
Osterman
’
s
scheme
.
The
very
fact
that
he
was
willing
to
talk
of
it
to
her
so
often
and
at
such
great
length
,
was
proof
positive
that
it
occupied
his
mind
.
The
pity
of
it
,
the
tragedy
of
it
!
He
,
Magnus
,
the
“
Governor
,
”
who
had
been
so
staunch
,
so
rigidly
upright
,
so
loyal
to
his
convictions
,
so
bitter
in
his
denunciation
of
the
New
Politics
,
so
scathing
in
his
attacks
on
bribery
and
corruption
in
high
places
;
was
it
possible
that
now
,
at
last
,
he
could
be
brought
to
withhold
his
condemnation
of
the
devious
intrigues
of
the
unscrupulous
,
going
on
there
under
his
very
eyes
?
That
Magnus
should
not
command
Harran
to
refrain
from
all
intercourse
with
the
conspirators
,
had
been
a
matter
of
vast
surprise
to
Mrs
.
Derrick
.
Time
was
when
Magnus
would
have
forbidden
his
son
to
so
much
as
recognise
a
dishonourable
man
.
But
besides
all
this
,
Derrick
’
s
wife
trembled
at
the
thought
of
her
husband
and
son
engaging
in
so
desperate
a
grapple
with
the
railroad
—
that
great
monster
,
iron
-
hearted
,
relentless
,
infinitely
powerful
.
Always
it
had
issued
triumphant
from
the
fight
;
always
S
.
Behrman
,
the
Corporation
’
s
champion
,
remained
upon
the
field
as
victor
,
placid
,
unperturbed
,
unassailable
.
But
now
a
more
terrible
struggle
than
any
hitherto
loomed
menacing
over
the
rim
of
the
future
;
money
was
to
be
spent
like
water
;
personal
reputations
were
to
be
hazarded
in
the
issue
;
failure
meant
ruin
in
all
directions
,
financial
ruin
,
moral
ruin
,
ruin
of
prestige
,
ruin
of
character
.
Success
,
to
her
mind
,
was
almost
impossible
.
Annie
Derrick
feared
the
railroad
.
At
night
,
when
everything
else
was
still
,
the
distant
roar
of
passing
trains
echoed
across
Los
Muertos
,
from
Guadalajara
,
from
Bonneville
,
or
from
the
Long
Trestle
,
straight
into
her
heart
.
At
such
moments
she
saw
very
plainly
the
galloping
terror
of
steam
and
steel
,
with
its
single
eye
,
cyclopean
,
red
,
shooting
from
horizon
to
horizon
,
symbol
of
a
vast
power
,
huge
and
terrible
;
the
leviathan
with
tentacles
of
steel
,
to
oppose
which
meant
to
be
ground
to
instant
destruction
beneath
the
clashing
wheels
.
No
,
it
was
better
to
submit
,
to
resign
oneself
to
the
inevitable
.
She
obliterated
herself
,
shrinking
from
the
harshness
of
the
world
,
striving
,
with
vain
hands
,
to
draw
her
husband
back
with
her
.
Just
before
Annixter
’
s
arrival
,
she
had
been
sitting
,
thoughtful
,
in
her
long
chair
,
an
open
volume
of
poems
turned
down
upon
her
lap
,
her
glance
losing
itself
in
the
immensity
of
Los
Muertos
that
,
from
the
edge
of
the
lawn
close
by
,
unrolled
itself
,
gigantic
,
toward
the
far
,
southern
horizon
,
wrinkled
and
serrated
after
the
season
’
s
ploughing
.
The
earth
,
hitherto
grey
with
dust
,
was
now
upturned
and
brown
.
As
far
as
the
eye
could
reach
,
it
was
empty
of
all
life
,
bare
,
mournful
,
absolutely
still
;
and
,
as
she
looked
,
there
seemed
to
her
morbid
imagination
—
diseased
and
disturbed
with
long
brooding
,
sick
with
the
monotony
of
repeated
sensation
—
to
be
disengaged
from
all
this
immensity
,
a
sense
of
a
vast
oppression
,
formless
,
disquieting
.
The
terror
of
sheer
bigness
grew
slowly
in
her
mind
;
loneliness
beyond
words
gradually
enveloped
her
.
She
was
lost
in
all
these
limitless
reaches
of
space
.
Had
she
been
abandoned
in
mid
-
ocean
,
in
an
open
boat
,
her
terror
could
hardly
have
been
greater
.
She
felt
vividly
that
certain
uncongeniality
which
,
when
all
is
said
,
forever
remains
between
humanity
and
the
earth
which
supports
it
.
She
recognised
the
colossal
indifference
of
nature
,
not
hostile
,
even
kindly
and
friendly
,
so
long
as
the
human
ant
-
swarm
was
submissive
,
working
with
it
,
hurrying
along
at
its
side
in
the
mysterious
march
of
the
centuries
.
Let
,
however
,
the
insect
rebel
,
strive
to
make
head
against
the
power
of
this
nature
,
and
at
once
it
became
relentless
,
a
gigantic
engine
,
a
vast
power
,
huge
,
terrible
;
a
leviathan
with
a
heart
of
steel
,
knowing
no
compunction
,
no
forgiveness
,
no
tolerance
;
crushing
out
the
human
atom
with
sound
less
calm
,
the
agony
of
destruction
sending
never
a
jar
,
never
the
faintest
tremour
through
all
that
prodigious
mechanism
of
wheels
and
cogs
.
Such
thoughts
as
these
did
not
take
shape
distinctly
in
her
mind
.
She
could
not
have
told
herself
exactly
what
it
was
that
disquieted
her
.
She
only
received
the
vague
sensation
of
these
things
,
as
it
were
a
breath
of
wind
upon
her
face
,
confused
,
troublous
,
an
indefinite
sense
of
hostility
in
the
air
.
The
sound
of
hoofs
grinding
upon
the
gravel
of
the
driveway
brought
her
to
herself
again
,
and
,
withdrawing
her
gaze
from
the
empty
plain
of
Los
Muertos
,
she
saw
young
Annixter
stopping
his
horse
by
the
carriage
steps
.
But
the
sight
of
him
only
diverted
her
mind
to
the
other
trouble
.
She
could
not
but
regard
him
with
aversion
.
He
was
one
of
the
conspirators
,
was
one
of
the
leaders
in
the
battle
that
impended
;
no
doubt
,
he
had
come
to
make
a
fresh
attempt
to
win
over
Magnus
to
the
unholy
alliance
.
