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 ideas—­notes of regret and lamentation died in great vague spaces.  Ideas fell....  Was this all; was this all he had struggled for; was he in love?  A girl, a girl ... was a girl to soil the ideal he had in view?  No; he smiled painfully.  The sea of his thoughts grew calmer, the air grew dim and wan, a tall foundered wreck rose pale and spectral, memories drifted.  The long walks, the talks of the monastery, the neighbours, the pet rooks, and Sammy the great yellow cat, and the green-houses ... he remembered the pleasure he had taken in those conversations!

What must all this lead to?  To a coarse affection, to marriage, to children, to general domesticity.

And contrasted with this....

The dignified and grave life of the cloister, the constant sensation of lofty and elevating thought, a high ideal, the communion of learned men, the charm of headship.

Could he abandon this?  No, a thousand times no; but there was a melting sweetness in the other cup.  The anticipation filled his veins with fever.

And trembling and pale with passion, John fell on his knees and prayed for grace.  But prayer was sour and thin upon his lips, and he could only beg that the temptation might pass from him....

“In the morning,” he said, “I shall be strong.”

CHAPTER V.

But if in the morning he were strong, Kitty was more beautiful than ever, and they walked out in the sunlight.  They walked out on the green sward, under the evergreen oaks where the young rooks are swinging; out on the mundane swards into the pleasure ground; a rosery and a rockery; the pleasure ground divided from the park by iron railings, the park encircled by the rich elms, the elms shutting out the view of the lofty downs.

The meadows are yellow with buttercups, and the birds fly out of the gold.  And the golden note is prolonged through the pleasure grounds by the pale yellow of the laburnums, by the great yellow of the berberis, by the cadmium yellow of the gorse, by the golden wallflowers growing amid rhododendrons and laurels.

And the transparent greenery of the limes shivers, and the young rooks swinging on the branches caw feebly.

And about the rockery there are purple bunches of lilac, and the striped awning of the tennis seat touches with red the paleness of the English spring.

Pansies, pale yellow pansies!

The sun glinting on the foliage of the elms spreads a napery of vivid green, and the trunks come out black upon the cloth of gold, and the larks fly out of the gold, and the sky is a single sapphire, and two white clouds are floating.  It is May time.