Chapter 55

Elmer, pale beneath the tan, experienced the most appalling moment of his life so far. He could not marry the girl, and Fringal knew he could not. Yet he must. He was quite aware that Isaiah could do exactly what he said. A man with so tremendous a reputation, of an old, known family, of almost fabulous wealth—for Dysgwlfas measures wealth by its own standards—revered to idolatry, could smash him as easily as he could smash a wasp on the window. Or he could make him. It was an instance of the reversal of reward and…