f to task for.
'Where is the analogy, Brute Beast,' he said impatiently, 'between a
woman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom you
have found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and
more of constancy since you first set eyes upon her? Ass! Can you reason
no better than that?'

But, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowledge
of his power just now, and of her disclosure of her heart. To try no
more to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion it
turned uppermost. And yet again, 'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad
business!' And, 'I wish I could stop the Lightwood peal, for it sounds
like a knell.'

Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that the stars
were beginning to shine in the sky from which the tones of red and
yellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of a summer
night. He was still by the river-side. Turning suddenly, he met a man,
so close upon him that Eugene, surprised, stepped back, to avoid a
collision. The man carried something over his shoulder which might
have been a broken oar, or spar, or bar, and took no notice of him, but
passed on.

'Halloa, friend!' said Eugene, calling after him, 'are you blind?'

The man made no reply, but went his way.

Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind him and his
purpose in his thoughts. He passed the sheep, and passed the gate, and
came within hearing of the village sounds, and came to the bridge. The
inn where he stayed, like the village and the mill, was not across
the river, but on that side of the stream on which he walked. However,
knowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the other side to be a
retired place, and feeling out of humour for noise or company, he
crossed the bridge, and sauntered on: looking up at the stars as they
seemed one by one to be kindled in the sky, and looking down at the
river as the same stars seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A
landing-place overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasure-boat lying moored
there among some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot was
in such dark shadow, that he paused to make out what was there, and then
passed on again.

The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his
uneasy reflections. He would have laid them asleep if he could, but they
were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong
current. As the rip