II
But all the while he was gnawed by sorrow for what he was doing. Nan! Linnet! so young, so disarming! he knew he loved them both. In his mind they were children. Could he but struggle out of the deadly groove of perversity that held him, could he but shake off the innumerable fetters of his small malignities! As well hope to shake off the physical cowardice that was his secret torment and his shame. To rise! to escape! to leave behind all the indignity of petulance and rancour! at times he fancied almost that he could hear the beating of great wings, and a kind of swoon overtook him, as one who has fasted, or has remained too long in mystic contemplation; but, emerging from it, he was instantly wrapped up again in the cold craftiness of his schemings, that tangled themselves round him as surely as he would tangle them round others.