a bitterness unusual at his age, what he would do with his life. He seemed fitted for nothing in particular. No business or profession of which he had ever heard awakened any response of inclination in him. He would have liked to stay at home and work with Piers, but he quailed before the thought of a life subject to his brother's tyranny.
Sometimes he dreamed of standing in the pulpit of a vast, dim cathedral, such as he had seen only in pictures, and swaying a multitude by his burning eloquence. He, Finch Whiteoak, in a long white surplice and richly embroidered stole—a bishop—an archbishop, the very head of the Church, next to God Himself. But the dream always ended by the congregation's fleeing from the cathedral, a panic-stricken mob; for he had unwittingly let them have a glimpse of his own frightened, craven soul, howling like a poor hound before the terror of God.
"Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?"
He was growing quieter now as he hung across the sill, letting the fine mist of rain moisten his hands and head. Below, on the lawn, a bright square of light fell from a window of the drawing-room. Someone came and stood at the window, throwing the shadow of a woman into the bright rectangle. Which of them? Meg, Pheasant, Alayne? Alayne, he felt sure. There was something in the poise. . . . Again he thought of her lips, of kissing them. He drew in his hands, wet with rain, and pressed them against his eyeballs. "For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth." Why could he remember these torturing texts when nothing else would stay in his head? "Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." He pressed his fingers closer, and there began going through his brain
