He moved through
the trees and found a point where, on higher ground, he could look
across into the garden and see a part of the terrace and verandas.
None of the girls was visible. They had been gathered into those
hospitable walls for the night.
Presently he thought he heard them singing. Yes, that was an evening
hymn. The girls were thanking God for the long daylight of a summer's
day, before they lay down to rest, to sleep, to forget they were alive
till God's sun rose again.
And Dale began once more to think of God. To-night he would not fly
from the sound of the girls' voices. All that reluctance and distaste
was over and done with; it belonged to the time when he was still
struggling against the inevitable drift of his inclinations. Now he
had passed to a state of mind that nothing external could really
affect.
"The finger of God"--Yes, those were unforgivable words. He stretched
himself at full length upon the ground, leaned his head on his elbow,
and lay musing.
He taxed his imagination in order to give himself a concept of what
such a tremendous figure of speech should in truth convey. One said
finger, of course, because one wished to imply that no effort was
used, scarcely any of the divine force drawn upon--just as one says of
a man, he did so-and-so with a turn of the wrist, that is, quite
easily, without putting his back into it.
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