a few minutes later, in his
turn. He walked on mechanically, in his dreary black garments, moving
like a blot on the white surface of the sun-brightened road, as
Midwinter had seen him move in the early days at Thorpe Ambrose, when
they had first met. Arrived at the point where he had to choose between
the way that led into the town and the way that led to the great house,
he stopped, incapable of deciding, and careless, apparently, even of
making the attempt. "I'll be revenged on her!" he whispered to himself,
still absorbed in his jealous frenzy of rage against the woman who had
deceived him. "I'll be revenged on her," he repeated, in louder tones,
"if I spend every half-penny I've got!"

Some women of the disorderly sort, passing on their way to the town,
heard him. "Ah, you old brute," they called out, with the measureless
license of their class, "whatever she did, she served you right!"

The coarseness of the voices startled him, whether he comprehended the
words or not. He shrank away from more interruption and more insult,
into the quieter road that led to the great house.

At a solitary place by the wayside he stopped and sat down. He took off
his hat and lifted his youthful wig a little from his bald old head, and
tried desperately to get beyond the one immovable conviction which lay
on his mind like lead--the conviction that Miss Gwilt had been purposely
deceiving him from the first. It was useless. No effort would free him
from that one dominant impression, and from the one answering idea that
it had evoked--the idea of revenge. He got up again, and put on his hat
and walked rapidly forward a little way--then turned without knowing
why, and slowly walked back again "If I had only dressed a little
smarter!" said the poor wretch, helplessly. "If I had only been a little
bolder with her, she might have overlooked my being an old man!" The
angry fit returned on him. He clinched his clammy, trembling hands,
and shook them fiercely in the empty air. "I'll be revenged on her," he
reiterated. "I'll be revenged on her, if I spend every half-penny I've
got!" It was terribly suggestive of the hold she had taken on him, that
his vindictive sense of injury could not get far enough away from her to
reach the man whom he believed to be his rival, even yet. In his rage,
as in his love, he was absorbed, body and soul, by Miss Gwilt.

In a moment more, the noise of running wheels approaching from behind
startled him. He tur