He felt, in a way so familiar as to be almost dreary, the chosen victim of the gods, the self-admitted traitor, the one destined for judgment.

There are indeed many places where I could start. I might start with Rachel's tears, or Priscilla's. There is much shedding of tears in this story. In a complex explanation any order may seem arbitrary. Where after all does anything begin? That three of the four starting points I have mentioned were causally independent of each other suggests speculations, doubtless of the most irrational kind, upon the mystery of human fate.

If at that moment Clement had caught sight of the dog and had managed to capture him, the fates of a number of people in this story would have been entirely different. Such is the vast play of chance in human lives.

He had to go there because of Patrick; and because it was fated. Yes, that gave him courage, to feel that he had not sought it, it had come upon him, and however fruitless or disastrous that journey might be, he had to undertake it, because it was his fate.

If the fates were arranging things, it was better to leave it entirely to them.

How much harm, eddying outward in fateful circles, Clement was beginning to foresee.

Oh what an ill fate it was that has made me love that man.

I've not often been happy or thought it was in my stars.

Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.