Reb Monash had chosen well; for that preoccupation which had held his face all that morning now held his son's for the rest of that day. After dinner he lay down on the sofa thinking heavily; he neither spoke a word with his mother nor picked up a book. He had answered too easily all the questions life had offered him. Was it too late to begin thinking clearly now? Were his conclusions correct by accident or were all his conclusions mere self-flattery? No formula to help him through the mists of doubt which were swarming round him came his way. Late that night, when _shool_ and the evening _meyeriv_ service were over, he walked out towards Baxter's Hill, under the light of stars. It was not long that he moved onward like a sluggish water. A wind came from somewhere afar off and set into motion the mists in his head. More and more quickly they whirled within him, and then, swiftly, they were gone. He rose skywards from his feet. Without pain or pleasure, all that issue which had racked him this day became thin, remote. He moved on the shores of a sea where the sands were stars, and the sea was the great womb of the undefined, where all things were not, but God was. Trembling, aghast, he stood on the arch of the sweep of sands, hearing incoherent murmurings. Towards a blackness cool and clear he stood where foam and wind beat into his face. He turned from the voices of sea and bent down dabbling his fingers among the star-sands. He rose and walked stepping from rock to rock to the channel where the Milky Way flowed inward from the sea. On the bank of the Milky Way, he stopped once more and lifted in his hands a handful of grass. Beyond the slope, the dim waters of Mitchen moved through the night. He leaned for some minutes drowsing against a tree trunk, then turned towards the vague hulk of Baxter's Hill. "It's over!" he whispered. "I know!" CHAPTER X