m than so many rainy hours for sleeping,--the time to be
looked back on through coming lives as the hour when good and ill came
to them, and they made their choice, and, as Holmes said, did abide by
it.

It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaeton before they entered
town, and turned back. He was going to see this Margret Howth, tell
her what he meant to do. Because he was going to leave a clean record.
No one should accuse him of want of honour. This girl alone of all
living beings had a right to see him as he stood, justified to himself.
Why she had this right, I do not think he answered to himself.
Besides, he must see her, if only on business. She must keep her place
at the mill: he would not begin his new life by an act of injustice,
taking the bread out of Margret's mouth. LITTLE MARGRET! He stopped
suddenly, looking down into a deep pool of water by the road-side.
What madness of weariness crossed his brain just then I do not know.
He shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth more to him than to other
men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowly through the
cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale, frightened face
of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to look, with all his
iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting
there just where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came
closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp her
hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It was an
old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened or hurt. It
would only need a word, and he could be quiet and firm,--she was such a
child compared to him: he always had thought of her so. He went on up
to her slowly, and stopped; when she looked at him, he untied the linen
bonnet that hid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the
little face had grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about
her, and stooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God! what did
she do that for? Did not she know that he could put his head beneath
her foot then, he was so mad with pity for the woman he had wronged?
Not love, he thought, controlling himself,--it was only justice to be
kind to her.

"You have been ill, Margret, these two years, while I was gone?"

He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with a white,
pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought,--very kind and firm:
an