d himself: and now
he was possessed by a proportionate anguish. A father! he dared never
see his child. And he had no longer his phantasies to fall upon. He
was utterly bare to his sin. In his troubled mind it seemed to him that
Clare looked down on him--Clare who saw him as he was; and that to her
eyes it would be infamy for him to go and print his kiss upon his child.
Then came stern efforts to command his misery and make the nerves of his
face iron.

By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of past
summers, beside a brook, he halted as one who had reached his journey's
end. There he discovered he had a companion in Lady Judith's little dog.
He gave the friendly animal a pat of recognition, and both were silent
in the forest-silence.

It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was surcharged. He
must advance, and on he footed, the little dog following.

An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. In the dells and
on the heights was the same dead heat. Here where the brook tinkled it
was no cool-lipped sound, but metallic, and without the spirit of water.
Yonder in a space of moonlight on lush grass, the beams were as white
fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread around. The valleys were
clear, defined to the shadows of their verges, the distances sharply
distinct, and with the colours of day but slightly softened. Richard
beheld a roe moving across a slope of sward far out of rifle-mark. The
breathless silence was significant, yet the moon shone in a broad blue
heaven. Tongue out of mouth trotted the little dog after him; crouched
panting when he stopped an instant; rose weariedly when he started
afresh. Now and then a large white night-moth flitted through the dusk
of the forest.

On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey
topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard mechanically
sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting
of the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald lights: hundreds of
glow-worms studded the dark dry ground.

He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were expended
in action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon turned his shadow
Westward from the South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of
silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the
van of a tempest. He did not observe them or the leaves beginning to
chatter. When he again pursued his course