Musk had come away. He was looking at the south wall where it had obviously been rebuilt. Carlton was skulking in the porch. The high moon fell heavily on the upturned face, covering it with white patches and black wrinkles; and these were working like a seething mass; but for a long time the great frame stood motionless. Then, in a flash, a huge fist flew from the huge shoulder, struck the sandstone a sickening blow, swung round and was shaken at the rectory through the trees until the blood dripped from the mangled knuckles. Carlton was so near that he could both see and hear the heavy drops. He drew further within the porch: he had also seen his enemy's face. Carlton had the fair mind and the true eye of the exceptional man. He saw most things immediately as they really were, not as he wished to see them, still less as they affected himself. He saw the moonlit face of Jasper Musk for many a day. It did not haunt him. He could have dismissed the vision from his mind at will; he preferred to consider it calmly in a white light. There was hate undying and invincible. There was something to respect. Carlton compared the petty though persistent enmity of Sir Wilton Gleed with the great dumb hatred of Jasper Musk; the last was inexorable as it was just; the first not wholly one or the other, or Carlton was mistaken in the smaller man. Sir Wilton might be the last man on earth to forgive him, yet in the very end he would follow the world, supposing for a moment that the world ever led. But Jasper Musk would hate the harder as the hate of others dwindled and died. This conviction cast no new shadow across Carlton's life, but it brought a new name into his prayers, and put the fine edge on an old anxiety. He had always been anxious about his child, though in the beginning that sense had been overborne by others. Now, however, it was acute enough. What was becoming of the boy? Did he live? Was Musk bringing him up? Was he kindly treated? Yes, yes, they would be kind enough! Carlton trusted his enemy there; but his own position was none the less grieving as he came to realise what it was. He had no position at all towards the child--no rights, no control, no voice, no _locus standi_ whatsoever. Was it better so, or worse? What were they teaching the child? Would he also grow up to deny God, and to execrate the name of his unworthy minister?