es--for puny, feeble, lonely me?

Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to be
Ephraim Gundry's. I was quite surprised, and told him so; and he said
that he also was surprised at meeting me in this way. Remembering how
long I had been here, I thought this most irrational, but checked myself
from saying so, because he looked so poorly. And more than that, I asked
him kindly how he was this evening, and smoothed my dress to please his
eye, and offered him a chair of rock. But he took no notice of all these
things.

I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very differently
from this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me to repress
vexation. However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if he were his own
grandfather.

"How grand these mountains are!" I said. "It must do you good to see
them again. Even to me it is such a delight. And what must it be to you,
a native?"

"Yes, I shall wander from them no more. How I wish that I had never done
so?"

"Have men less courage than women?" I asked, with one glance at his pale
worn face. "I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place to think
and speak of it. I used to talk freely of that, you know. You used to
like to hear me speak; but now you are tired of that, and tired of all
the world as well, I fear."

"No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation. I am tired
of my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load. I am tired of my lack
of reason, which should always guide a man. What is the use of mind or
intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is called, if the whole of
them can not enable a man to hold out against a stupid heart?"

"I think you should be proud," I said, while trembling to approach the
subject which never had been touched between us, "at having a nature
so sensitive. Your evil chance might have been any body's, and must of
course have been somebody's. But nobody else would have taken it so--so
delightfully as you have done!"

"Delightfully! Is that the word you use? May I ask who gets any delight
from it?"

"Why, all who hate the Southern cause," I replied, with a sudden turn of
thought, though I never had meant to use the word. "Surely that needs no
explanation."

"They are delighted, are they? Yes, I can very well believe it.
Narrow-minded bigots! Yes, they are sure to be delighted. They call it a
just visitation, of course