turned there into a narrow
path which he remembered well. Now and then he saw the mark of a
little shoe in the snow,--looking down at it with a hot panting in his
veins, and a strange flash in his eye, as he walked on steadily.

There was a turn in the path at the top of the hill, a sunken wall,
with a broad stone from which the wind had blown the snow. This was the
place. He sat down on the stone, resting. Just there she had stood,
clutching her little fingers behind her, when he came up and threw back
her hood to look in her face: how pale and worn it was, even then! He
had not looked at her to-night: he would not, if he had been dying,
with those men standing there. He stood alone in the world with this
little Margret. How those men had carped, and criticised her,
chattered of the duties of her soul! Why, it was his, it was his own,
softer and fresher. There was not a glance with which they followed
the weak little body in its poor dress that he had not seen, and
savagely resented. They measured her strength? counted how long the
bones and blood would last in their House of Refuge? There was not a
morsel of her flesh that was not pure and holy in his eyes. His
Margret? He chafed with an intolerable fever to make her his, but for
one instant, as she had been once. Now, when it was too late. For he
went back over every word he had spoken that night, forcing himself to
go through with it,--every cold, poisoned word. It was a fitting
penance. "There is no such thing as love in real life:" he had told
her that! How he had stood, with all the power of his "divine soul" in
his will, and told her,--he,--a man,--that he put away her love from
him then, forever! He spared himself nothing,--slurred over nothing;
spurned himself, as it were, for the meanness, in which he had wallowed
that night. How firm he had been! how kind! how masterful!--pluming
himself on his man's strength, while he held her in his power as one
might hold an insect, played with her shrinking woman's nature, and
trampled it under his feet, coldly and quietly! She was in his way,
and he had put her aside. How the fine subtile spirit had risen up out
of its agony of shame, and scorned him! How it had flashed from the
puny frame standing there in the muddy road despised and jeered at, and
calmly judged him! He might go from her as he would, toss her off like
a worn-out plaything, but he could not blind her: let him put on what
face he w