As Brangwen had power over the cattle so the vicar had power over her husband. What was it in the vicar, that raised him above the common men as man is raised above the beast? She craved to know. She craved to achieve this higher being, if not in herself, then in her children. That which makes a man strong even if he be little and frail in body, just as any man is little and frail beside a bull, and yet stronger than the bull, what was it? It was not money nor power nor position. What power had the vicar over Tom Brangwen — none. Yet strip them and set them on a desert island, and the vicar was the master. His soul was master of the other man's. And why — why?

She decided it was a question of knowledge.

The curate was poor enough, and not very efficacious as a man, either,