..
all the people that he had known passed before him--Stephen Brant, his
grandfather, his father, his mother, Bobby Galleon, Mr. Zanti, Clare,
Cards, Mrs. Brockett, Norah, Henry Galleon, Mrs. Rossiter, dear Mrs. Launce
... these and many more. He could see them all dispassionately now; how
that other Peter Westcott had felt their contact; how he had longed for
their friendship, dreaded their anger, missed them, wanted them, minded
their desertion....
Now, behold, they were all gone. Alone on this Hill with the great sea at
his feet, with the storm rolling up to him, Peter Westcott thought of his
wife and his son, his friends and his career--thought of everything that
had been life to him, yes, even his sins, his temptations, his desires for
the beast in man, his surly temper, his furious anger, his selfishness, his
lack of understanding--all these things had been taken away from him, every
trail had been given to him--and now, naked, on a hill, he knew the first
peace of his life.
And as he knew, sitting there, that thus Peace had come to him, how odd it
seemed that only a few weeks ago he had been coming down to Cornwall with
his soul, as he had then thought, killed for ever.
The world had seemed, utterly, absolutely, for ever at an end; and now
here he was, sitting here, eager to go back into it all again, wanting--it
almost seemed--to be bruised and battered all over again.
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