Dale shrugged his shoulders, held his head high, and grunted fiercely.  But when he was abreast of the rocks, this imagined voice seemed to speak to him again.

“You and I have drawn so near together that there’s only one difference now—­that you are alive and I am dead.  But even that difference will be gone soon.”

And Dale, walking on rather slower than before, made an odd gesture of his left hand, a wave of hand and arm together, as of a dignified well-to-do citizen waving off some impudent mendicant:  seeming to say, “Be damned to you.  Just you lie quiet where I put you, and don’t worry.  I decline to have anything to do with you, or to allow the slightest communication between us.  I simply don’t recognize you—­nor will I ever admit again that I see the faintest resemblance.  If I wished, I could explain why.  Only I shan’t condescend to do so—­certainly not to you.”

Out of the big ride he went into one of the narrower cuts, and followed it until he came to the woodside boundary of the Barradine Orphanage.  This was where Mavis had stood looking at it years ago, when the building was in course of construction.  The wooden fence that she had thought so stiff and ugly then was all weak and old, green and moss-covered, completely broken down in many places.  Inside, the privet hedge had grown broad and thick; and this barrier, although any one could easily thrust himself through it, was evidently considered sufficient, since no trouble had been taken to repair the outer fence.  Indeed, what protective barriers could be needed for such an enclosure?  It contained no money or other kind of treasure; and who, however base, would attack or in any way threaten a lot of children?

Dale looked at the top of the belfry tower and the roof of the central block, and thought of it as a temple of youth, a sacred place dedicated to the worship of tender and innocent life.  He moved through the trees and found a point where, on higher ground, he could look across into the garden and see a part of the terrace and verandas.  None of the girls was visible.  They had been gathered into those hospitable walls for the night.

Presently he thought he heard them singing.  Yes, that was an evening hymn.  The girls were thanking God for the long daylight of a summer’s day, before they lay down to rest, to sleep, to forget they were alive till God’s sun rose again.

And Dale began once more to think of God.  To-night he would not fly from the sound of the girls’ voices.  All that reluctance and distaste was over and done with; it belonged to the time when he was still struggling against the inevitable drift of his inclinations.  Now he had passed to a state of mind that nothing external could really affect.

“The finger of God”—­Yes, those were unforgivable words.  He stretched himself at full length upon the ground, leaned his head on his elbow, and lay musing.