ckwards into the blaze; he nibbled his pencil
point. Wavering light and wavering shade followed fast over the Roman
profile, followed and flowed fitfully--fitfully as his thoughts. Now his
thought followed out architectural dreams, and now he thought of
himself, of his unhappy youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of his
solitary life; a bitter, unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wanting
in an ideal--a glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had always
met with failure, with disapproval, above all failure ... and yet, and
yet he felt, he almost knew there was something great and noble in him.
His eyes brightened; he slipped into thinking of schemes for a monastic
life; and then he thought of his mother's hard disposition and how she
misunderstood him,--everyone misunderstood him. What would the end be?
Would he succeed in creating the monastery he dreamed of so fondly? To
reconstruct the ascetic life of the Middle Ages, that would be something
worth doing, that would be a great ideal--that would make meaning in his
life. If he failed ... what should he do then? His life as it was, was
unbearable ... he must come to terms with life....

That central tower! how could he manage it! and that built-out front.
Was it true, as the architect said, that it would throw all the front
rooms into darkness? Without this front his design would be worthless.
What a difference it made!

Kitty liked it. She had thought it charming. How young she was, how
glad and how innocent, and how clever, her age being taken into
consideration. She understood all you said. It would not surprise him if
she developed into something: but she would marry....

But why was he thinking of her? What concern had she in his life? A
little slip of a girl--a girl--a girl more or less pretty, that was all.
And yet it was pleasant to hear her laugh. That low, sudden laugh--she
was pleasanter company than his mother, she was pleasant to have in the
house, she interrupted many an unpleasant scene. Then he remembered what
his mother had said. She had said that he was disappointed that she was
ill, that he had missed her, that ... that it was because she was not
there that he had found the day so intolerably wearisome.

Struck as with a dagger, the pain of the wound flowed through him
piercingly; and as a horse stops and stands trembling, for there is
something in the darkness beyond, John shrank back, his nerves
vibrating like highly-strung chords; and