night is on the world.
The twilight sheds on the walking birds, on the falling petals, and in
the rich shadow the candle burns brightly. The great bridal bed yawns,
the lace pillows lie wide, the curtains hang dreamily in the hallowed
light. John leans over his drawings. Once again he takes up the
architect's notes.

"_The interior would be so constructed as to make it impossible to
carry up the central tower. The outer walls would not be strong enough
to take the large gables and roof. Although the chapel could be done
easily, the ambulatory would be of no use, as it would lead probably
from the kitchen offices._

"_Would have to reduce work on front facade to putting in new arched
entrance. Buttresses would take the place of columns_.

"_The bow-window could remain_.

"_The roof to be heightened somewhat. The front projection would throw
the front rooms into almost total darkness_."

"But why not a light timber lantern tower?" thought John. "Yes, that
would get over the difficulty. Now if we could only manage to keep my
front ... if my design for the front cannot be preserved, I might as well
abandon the whole thing! And then?"

And then life seemed to him void of meaning and light. He might as well
settle down and marry....

His face contracted in an expression of anger. He rose from the table,
and he looked round the room. Its appearance was singularly jarring,
shattering as it did his dream of the cloister, and up-building in fancy
the horrid fabric of marriage and domesticity. The room seemed to him a
symbol--with the great bed, voluptuous, the corpulent arm-chair, the
toilet-table shapeless with muslin--of the hideous laws of the world
and the flesh, ever at variance and at war, and ever defeating the
indomitable aspirations of the soul. John ordered his room to be
changed; and, in the face of much opposition from his mother, who
declared that he would never be able to sleep there, and would lose his
health, he selected a narrow room at the end of the passage. He would
have no carpet. He placed a small iron bed against the wall; two plain
chairs, a screen to keep off the draught from the door, a basin-stand
such as you might find in a ship's cabin, and a prie-dieu, were all the
furniture he permitted himself.

"Oh, what a relief!" he murmured. "Now there is line, there is definite
shape. That formless upholstery frets my eye as false notes grate on my
ear;" and, becoming suddenly conscious of the presen