rs or so, I might have
accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of
flies or counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular
attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an
insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the
walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything
on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm
thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, 'The
shortness of life! The shortness of life!' I've only one night or
one day, and there's this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there,
undiscovered, unexplored."

"But, if you feel like that, why--" began Linda quickly.

"Ah!" cried Jonathan. And that "ah!" was somehow almost exultant.
"There you have me. Why? Why indeed? There's the maddening, mysterious
question. Why don't I fly out again? There's the window or the door or
whatever it was I came in by. It's not hopelessly shut--is it? Why don't
I find it and be off? Answer me that, little sister." But he gave her no
time to answer.

"I'm exactly like that insect again. For some reason"--Jonathan paused
between the words--"it's not allowed, it's forbidden, it's against the
insect law, to stop banging and flopping and crawling up the pane even
for an instant. Why don't I leave the office? Why don't I seriously
consider, this moment, for instance, what it is that prevents me
leaving? It's not as though I'm tremendously tied. I've two boys to
provide for, but, after all, they're boys. I could cut off to sea, or
get a job up-country, or--" Suddenly he smiled at Linda and said in
a changed voice, as if he were confiding a secret, "Weak... weak. No
stamina. No anchor. No guiding principle, let us call it." But then the
dark velvety voice rolled out:

"Would ye hear the story
How it unfolds itself... "

and they were silent.

The sun had set. In the western sky there were great masses of
crushed-up rose-coloured clouds. Broad beams of light shone through the
clouds and beyond them as if they would cover the whole sky. Overhead
the blue faded; it turned a pale gold, and the bush outlined against
it gleamed dark and brilliant like metal. Sometimes when those beams of
light show in the sky they are very awful. They remind you that up there
sits Jehovah, the jealous God, the Almighty, Whose eye is upon you, ever
watchful, never weary. You remember that at His co