Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/142

The Loom of Destiny long as the child himself, and it was tremendously heavy, but while the Ruler of the Bad Place was still trying to kiss his mother's soul into the Place of Crawling Things, by that one long embrace, he lifted the poker with both hands and brought it down with all his force on the little, shiny, bald spot on the man's head. After all, it was not a very heavy blow, but the man fell to the floor like a log. Tiddlywinks' mother saw the bleeding man, and the child, all in white, standing over him, gave one short scream, and fainted. Then the poker fell from Tiddlywinks' hands, and he turned and fled. He did not stop until he came to his own room. There he flung himself on his bed, and writhed in the awful consciousness of having killed, as he thought, two human beings.

When Hal came hurrying home by the night train, knowing something was wrong, he found Tiddlywinks still sobbing away as if his heart would break. Then Hal and his mother had a long, long talk, shut up together 130