bloodless zany, whom his wife left ere the wedding meats were cold."

His foot tapped the floor in anger, his eyes wandered restlessly out over
the green expanse. Suddenly a dove perched upon the window-sill before
him. His quick, shifting gaze settled on it and stayed, softening and
quieting.

After a slight pause, he turned to Philip and spoke in a still lower
tone. "Last night in the chapel I spake to God and I said: 'Lord God,
let there be fair speech between us. Wherefore hast Thou nailed me like
a malefactor to the tree? Why didst Thou send me a fool to lead our
house, and afterwards a lad as fine and strong as Absalom, and then lay
him low like a wisp of corn in the wind, leaving me wifeless--with a
prince to follow me, the by-word of men, the scorn of women--and of the
Vaufontaines?"'

He paused again, and his eyes seemed to pierce Philip's, as though he
would read if each word was burning its way into his brain.

"As I stood there alone, a voice spoke to me as plainly as now I speak to
you, and it said: 'Have done with railing. That which was the elder's
shall be given to the younger. The tree hath grown crabbed and old, it
beareth no longer. Behold the young sapling by thy door--I have planted
it there. The seed is the seed of the old tree. Cherish it, lest
a grafted tree flourish in thy house.'" . . . . His words rose
triumphantly. "Yes, yes, I heard it with my own ears, the Voice. The
crabbed tree, that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the
Vaufontaine, the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the
same seed as the crabbed old tree"--he reached out as though to clutch
Philip's arm, but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with