t illogically rewarded
by the bestowal of such stray grains of enthusiasm as had crumbled away
from her estimate of his companion. If some day she had declared, in a
sudden burst of passion, that she was outwearied and sickened, and that
she gave up her recreant lover, Rowland's expectation would have gone
half-way to meet her. And certainly if her passion had taken this course
no generous critic would utterly condemn her. She had been neglected,
ignored, forsaken, treated with a contempt which no girl of a fine
temper could endure. There were girls, indeed, whose fineness, like that
of Burd Helen in the ballad, lay in clinging to the man of their love
through thick and thin, and in bowing their head to all hard usage. This
attitude had often an exquisite beauty of its own, but Rowland deemed
that he had solid reason to believe it never could be Mary Garland's.
She was not a passive creature; she was not soft and meek and grateful
for chance bounties. With all her reserve of manner she was proud and
eager; she asked much and she wanted what she asked; she believed in
fine things and she never could long persuade herself that fine things
missed were as beautiful as fine things achieved. Once Rowland passed an
angry day. He had dreamed--it was the most insubstantial of dreams--that
she had given him the right to believe that she looked to him to
transmute her discontent. And yet here she was throwing herself back
into Roderick's arms at his lightest overture, and playing with his own
half fearful, half shameful hopes! Rowland declared to himself that
his position was essentially detestable, and that all the philosophy
he could bring to bear upon it would make it neither honorable nor
comfortable. He would go away and make an end of it. He did not go away;
he simply took a long walk, stayed away from the inn all day, and on his
return found Miss Garland sitting out in the moonlight with Roderick.

Rowland, communing with himself during the restless ramble in question,
had determined that he would at least cease to observe, to heed, or
to care for what Miss Garland and Roderick might do or might not do
together. Nevertheless, some three days afterward, the opportunity
presenting itself, he deliberately broached the subject with Roderick.
He knew this was inconsistent and faint-hearted; it was indulgence
to the fingers that itched to handle forbidden fruit. But he said to
himself that it was really more logical to be inconsis