Nothing could have been more innoxious,
more completely ministerial; and yet Dale had felt that he would like
to take the clerical gentleman by the collar of his black coat and the
seat of his gray trousers, and send him sprawling over a quick-set
hedge into a ploughed field.
He knew then the nature of the poison that had crept insidiously into
his blood and was beginning to spread and rage with deadly power. He
fought against it bravely, he fought against it despairingly. He hoped
that chance would cure him, he prayed that heaven would cleanse him.
He would not believe that his ruin was irretrievable. That would be
too monstrous and absurd. Because, except for this expanding trouble,
everything inside him, all the main component parts that made up the
vast and still solid thinking organism which had been labeled for
external observers by the name of William Dale, remained quite
unchanged. His religious faith stood absolutely firm, was strengthened
rather than shaken; he regarded his wife with exactly the same
affection; he loved his children as much as, more than ever; only this
astounding dreadful new thing was added to him: he worshiped Norah.
In his struggles to free himself from the new mental growth, he had
turned to his children.
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