Less for his own sake than Science's,--
Not even he, with his rich gathered lore,
Returns from that dark journey down to death.
Here or hereafter? Only this I know,
That, whatsoever happen afterwards,
Some men do penance on this side the grave.
Thus Regnald Garnaut for his cruel heart.

Owner and lord was he of Garnaut Hall,
A relic of the Norman conquerors,--
A quaint, rook-haunted pile of masonry,
From whose top battlement, a windy height,
Regnald could view his twenty prosperous farms;
His creaking mill, that, perched upon a cliff,
With outspread wings seemed ever taking flight;
The red-roofed cottages, the high-walled park,
The noisy aviary, and, nearer by,
The snow-white Doric parsonage,--all his own.
And all his own were chests of antique plate,
Horses and hounds and falcons, curious books,
Chain-armor, helmets, Gobelin tapestry,
And half a mile of painted ancestors.
Lord of these things, he wanted one thing more,
Not having which, all else to him was dross.

For Agnes Vail, the curate's only child,--
A little Saxon wild-flower that had grown
Unheeded into beauty day by day,
And much too delicate for this rude world,--
With that intuitive wisdom of the pure,
Saw that he loved her beauty, not herself,
And shrank from him, and when he came to speech
Parried his meaning with a woman's wit,
Then sobbed an hour when she was all alone.
And Regnald's mighty vanity was hurt.
"Why, then," snarled he, "if I had asked the Queen
To pick me some fair woman from the Court,
'T were but the asking. A blind curate's girl,
It seems, is somewhat difficult,--must have,
To warm her feet, our coronet withal!"
And Agnes evermore avoided him,
Clinging more closely to the old man's side;
And in the chapel never raised an eye,
But knelt there like a medieval saint,
Her holiness her buckler and her shield,--
That, and the golden floss of her long hair.

And Regnald felt that somehow he was foiled,--
Foiled, but not beaten. He would have his way.
Had not the Garnauts always had their will
These six or seven centuries, more or less?
Meanwhile he chafed; but shortly after this
Regnald received the sorest hurt of all.
For, one eve, lounging idly in the close,
Watching the windows of the parsonage,
He heard low voices