The Reverend Mr. Rennard was very late. His empty chair grew emptier. The Bible faded. The room was losing its submissive creature. It was bleak, it was larger and less alive. The ceiling went up and the vagrant thoughts of them who waited went less to the ceiling, flew out of the window. Outdoors came in. The chirp of a cricket, the minor-third of a frog in the far marsh, the undulant sighing of trees losing the sun--came into the room. The charm was gone. The empty chair was a chair. The One was a group, jarred apart.... “Father’s not coming,” Clarence said. “When he comes he’s on time.” “You tell the prayers,” said Ruth. She was the oldest. “Nonsense,” said Cornelia. “We’ll call it off.” Ruth smirked. She was glad her sister had committed herself. Laura was silent: Laura who was the youngest and yet a terrible age had eaten her. She was lanky and somehow starved. Her eyes drooped, her large hands hung limp, her breasts sagged under a thick brown frock. She was all dull, she was mournful and dry like the bald patches of earth in the field. Laura was the one who was sorry. She did not wish to hear her brother: she missed her father. She loved the bite of his words, the frequent blow of his hand. The Hell he pictured was sweet to her since he consigned it. Laura loved her father with the harsh lust of brown soil for the water that does not come. She was dry and hot and sick with this sterile love of her father. Clarence got up. “I guess not,” he said. “I’m going.” He was younger only than Ruth. He was twenty-four. He went each day in the buggy to Dahlton where he attended the Presbyterian Seminary. He was following the career of his father. Cornelia and Tom were alone. They looked at each other. A single instinct moved them. “Let’s go back,” she whispered. They clasped hands. They heard the crashing of the underbrush, a deep sudden breathing. They stood there silent. A tall man backed out from the clump of little cedars. He turned and dashed the clay model against a rock. Cornelia screamed. Mr. Rennard looked at his two children. His fingers trembled. He kicked the ruins of the statue back from his heels and came upon them. “What’s that?... You scream?” Cornelia was stark. “Stand aside,” he ordered Tom. Tom moved as a muscle flicks to a nerve. The man stood over his daughter. He was gray and erect. His hand lifted. He struck her sharp on the cheek. Then he smiled. His hand lifted again. “No you don’t,” she cried. “No, you don’t dare!” “You wanton----” “No, you don’t dare!” The old man looked at his son and daughter, his face was ineffably sad. It was sad with a sense of sacrilege and of a God proved impotent. It was sad with a hunger that only a blow could appease. “Go home!” His command straightened Cornelia and her face stayed Tom. “We are going to stay here.”