thing round as a dying man might, not knowing what
terrible revolution of life might have happened before he saw them
again--

"He looked on hill, and sea, and shore,
As he might never see them more."

Life was darkened over to his preoccupied eyes, and the composure of
nature jarred upon him, as though it were carelessness and indifference
to the fate which he felt to be coming in the air. He thought nothing
less than that his father and brother were discussing him with hearts as
heavy and clouded as his own; for even he, in all his tolerance and
impartiality, did not make due account of the fact, that every man has
his own concerns next to him, close enough to ameliorate and lighten the
weight of his anxieties for others. The prospect was all gloom to
Gerald, who was the sufferer; but the others found gleams of comfort in
their own horizon, which threw reflected lights upon his; for perfect
sympathy is not, except in dreams. There was quite a joyful little
commotion at the luncheon table when Frank's arrival was discovered; and
his sisters were kissing him, and his young brothers shaking his hand
off, while Gerald came slowly up, with preoccupied, lingering steps,
underneath the murmurous limes. All kinds of strange miseries were
appearing to him as he pursued his way. Glimpses of scenes to come--a
dark phantasmagoria of anticipated pain. He saw his wife and his
children going away out of their happy house; he saw himself severed
from all human ties, among alien faces and customs, working out a hard
novitiate. What could he do? His heart, so long on the rack, was aching
with dull throbs of anguish, but he did not see any way of escape. He
was a priest by all the training, all the habits of his life; how could
he give up that service to which he was called before everything, the
most momentous work on earth? For ease, for happiness, for even sacred
love, could he defraud God of the service he had vowed, and go back to
secular work just at the moment when the true meaning of ecclesiastical
work seemed dawning upon him? He had decided that question before, but
it came back and back. His eyes were heavy with thought and conflict as
he went up to his father's house. All this was wearing out his strength,
and sapping his very life. The sooner it was over the better would it be
for all.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Very little came, as was natural, of the talk in the library, to which
the entire afternoon was devoted