The change that had come to his old pupil was marked enough.

Strickland's mind dwelt on the old laird.

Was that the personality, not of one, but of two, of the whole line, perhaps, developing all the time, step by step with what seemed the plastic, otherwise, free time of youth, appearing always in due season, when its hour struck?
Would Alexander, with minor differences, repeat his father?
How of the mother?
Would the father drown the mother?
In the enormous all-one, the huge blend, what would arrive?
Out of all fathers and mothers, out of all causes?
It could not be said that Alexander was surly.

Nor, if the weather was dark with him, that he tried to shake his darkness into others' skies.

Nor that he meanly succumbed to the weight, whatever it was, that bore upon him.