He left her.  So frightened was he at this sudden and singular obsession of his spiritual nature by a lower and grosser nature, whose existence in himself was till now unsuspected, and of whose life and wants in others he had felt, and still felt, so much scorn, that in the tumult of his loathing he could not gain the calm of mind necessary for an examination of conscience.  He could not look into his mind with any present hope of obtaining a truthful reply to the very eminent and vital question, how far his will had participated in that burning but wholly inexcusable desire by which he had been so shockingly assailed.

That inner life, so strangely personal and pure, and of which he was so proud, seemed to him now to be befouled, and all its mystery and inner grace, and the perfect possession which was his sanctuary, lost to him for ever.  For he could never quite forget the defiling thought; it would always remain with him, and the consciousness of the stain would preclude all possibility of that refining happiness, that attribute of cleanliness, which he now knew had long been his.  In his anger and self-loathing his rage turned against Kitty.  It was always the same story—­the charm and ideality of man’s life always soiled by woman’s influence; so it was in the beginning, so it shall be....

He stopped before the injustice of the accusation; he remembered her candour and her gracious innocence, and he was sorry; and he remembered her youth and her beauty, and he let his thoughts dwell upon her.  Turning over his papers he came across the old monk’s song to David: 

    “Surge meo domno dulces fac, fistula versus: 
    David amat versus, surge fac fistula versus,
    David amat vates vatorum est gloria David....”

The verses seemed meaningless and tame, but they awoke vague impulses in him, and, his mind filled by a dim dream of King David and Bathsheba, he opened his Bible and turned over the pages, reading a phrase here and there until he had passed from story and psalm to the Song of songs, and was finally stopped by—­“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love.”

He laid the book down and leaned back in his chair, and holding his temple with one hand (this was his favourite attitude) he looked in the fire fixedly.  He was ravaged by emotion.  The magical fervour of the words he had just read had revealed to him the depth of his passion.

But he would tear the temptation out of his heart.  The conduct of his life had been long ago determined upon.  He had known the truth as if by instinct from the first; no life was possible except an ascetic life, at least for him.  And in this hour of weakness he summoned to his aid all his ancient ideals:  the solemnity and twilight of the arches, the massive Gregorian chant which seems to be at once their voice and their soul, the cloud of incense melting upon the mitres and sunsets, and the boys’ treble