o it only once--and
then he had gone there with the hounds and jolly loud-voiced riders,
cub-hunting, on a bright September morning. The wood symbolized
everything that he wished to forget. And he thought that if he were
really a rich man--not a poor little well-to-do trader, but a fabulous
millionaire--he'd buy all this woodland, cut down every tree, chase
away every shadow, and grow corn in the sunlight. He would buy
woodland and parkland too--he would burn Aunt Petherick's hidden
cottage, the Abbey with its inner, outer and middle courtyards, yes,
and its church also; he would burn and fell, and grub and plough, and
then plant the seeds of corn that symbolize the resurrection of life;
and the sun should shine on a wide yellow sea, with waves of hope
rippling across it as the ripened ears bowed and rose; and there
should be no trace or stain to mark the submerged slime that had held
corruption and death. Then, if he could do that, he would have nothing
to remind him of all he had gone through in the past.

Nothing to remind him?

It made no difference whether the Abbey towers and the North Ride
chimneys were visible or invisible; no screen of trees, whether
leafless as now or carrying the full weight of foliage, could really
screen them from him; they were inside him, together with all that
they had once signified, a part of himself. If he did not look at them
with introspective eyes, if he ignored their existence, if he
succeeded in not thinking of them, there was always something else,
inside him or outside him, to carry his thoughts back into the black
bad time.

At this moment it was the Orphanage, with its wet red roofs and
dripping white verandas. His road took him close in front of it--a
lengthy stretch of building composed of a central block that contained
the hall and schoolrooms, and two lesser and lower blocks connected by
cloisters. He glanced at these blocks--long and low, only a ground
floor and an upper story--and noticed the veranda and broad balconies.
The girls slept here, as Mavis had told him; the younger in one block
and the older in the other block. The whole institution had an air of
old-established order and unceasing care; all the paint was new and
clean; the gardens and terraces, with hedges and shrubs that had grown
high and thick, were beautifully kept; not a weed showed in borders or
paths; the copper bell in the belfry turret was so well polished that
it seemed to shine, even though n