But his own father was here, whose love for him was like hate, and whose hate pierced at once his son's heart and his own. What should he do? It was he, of course it was he! Whose else could those mournful and hostile eyes be, their orbs large with a stricken indignation? There passed across the fringe of his stupor a recollection like the vague white wing of an owl at dayfall. Hadn't his father said something about going to see Dorah up in Longton this evening? Why had he not taken warning and kept away? His father must have noticed from the road some hundred yards away the gathering on the croft against the railings of Longton Park. He must then have determined to go home through the croft instead of down the straight Blenheim Road, so to discover whether the proselytized one, the forbidden Harry Sewelson, was uttering his nefarious doctrine here, with Philip, perhaps, at his feet. And here he stood, his brow contracted with pent fury, biting his upper lip! With what dexterity of the sloping brush had he stroked the silky fibre of his hat to-day! How white, deathly white, was the white bow on his stiff white front! There were signs of white in his black beard. He was getting old, old. His eyes blazed. Old? He was young, proud, strong--younger than his son, young as his race, the eternal child, the stubborn stripling that would not change nor grow though God were visible, though the hills melted, though the stars cried across the void "Lo! you must change or you shall die!" In this moment with tense clarity an alternative presented itself before Philip's swooning eyes. He might withdraw; he had carried them with him so clearly that they would let him go with but a sympathetic murmur if he stammered out that he was unwell. He could withdraw with grace, and at the same time go to meet the inevitable trouble half-way. There discretion pointed. He must decide at once. Or else, or else he could set the seal on his victories. He would not have uttered that dismal shout in school vainly, he would not have recanted vainly upon that strange dim night. He would, seeking for courage in the very depth of his spirit, in the very height of this sky where his father and he stood face to face, while Doomington waited, and his race waited, he would gather together once more the reins of his daring. Who should withstand his horses? Who should gainsay the thunder of their nostrils and the death in their feet! Was it his own battle alone that awaited decision? Himself, he existed no more! The unborn brothers of his race, the unborn children of his country, lifted towards him their ghostly hands. Do not desert us, they said, for in a boy's hand lies the issue, and God is silent, waiting that a boy should speak. A boy was he? A boy? He was a man amongst the men of eld! Isaiah was by his side! Dimly the exquisite voice of Shelley said to him, "Do not despair!"