He put off consulting a doctor from day to day, alleging that he had not the time. But the real reason, though he never admitted it, was the fear that the doctor might tell him what he guessed to be the truth.

Were his wits leaving him? The horror of the question smote through him like the drive of a javelin. What was to happen? What nameless calamity impended?

“ Wheat-wheat-wheat, wheat-wheat-wheat. ”

His watch under his pillow took up the refrain. How to grasp the morrow’s business, how control the sluice gates of that torrent he had unchained, with this unspeakable crumbling and disintegrating of his faculties going on?

Jaded, feeble, he rose to meet another day. He drove down town, trying not to hear the beat of his horses’ hoofs. Dizzy and stupefied, he gained Gretry’s office, and alone with his terrors sat in the chair before his desk, waiting, waiting.