The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the
household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished
two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and
precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of
the yard. Again the sense of the smallness of himself and his
surroundings, of the vastness of all else, poured over his soul; these
little piled bricks and stones, the lawns and woods round about, even
England and the world itself, he thought, as his mind shot out towards
the stars and the unfathomable spaces--all these were but very tiny
things, negligeable quantities, when he looked at them in the eternal
light. It was this thought, after all, that was calling him out of the
world, and had been calling him fitfully ever since his soul awoke eight
years ago, and knew herself and her God: and his heart expanded and grew
tremulous as he remembered once more that his vocation had been sealed
by a divine messenger, and that he would soon be gone out of this little
cell into the wide silent liberty of the most dear children of God.




CHAPTER III

THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES


Ralph relented as the month drew on, and was among those who wished
Chris good-bye on the afternoon of the July day on which he was to
present himself at Lewes. The servants were all drawn up at the back of
the terrace against the hall, watching Ralph, even more than his