int.

Dale grunted, shook himself, and went off the ride in the opposite
direction--to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's
footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her
shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He
found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them
to the fallen beech tree.

She was gone now--already a long way from him--at the railway station,
with ticket bought, and box labeled, waiting for the train to take her
still farther from him. Only a heron could fly fast enough to get to
her now before the train possessed her. And he quoted himself again,
really saying the words aloud this time. "Good-by--my darling--good-by,
good-by."

That was what he meant when he gave her the last kiss. He had said so.
He had called it the last kiss. But she--poor lamb--thought it was the
last kiss till next time; that it was good-by for three weeks, not
good-by forever. He must never see her again. There could be no two
ways about _that_ decision. He mustn't palter, or trifle, or
shilly-shally about that iron certainty. But how without Heaven's
unceasing aid would he have strength to keep such a vow?

And sitting on the tree, and thinking for a little while about himself
rather than about her, he endeavored to survey his situation in the
logical clear-sighted way that had once been customary with him. To
what a blank no-thoroughfare he had brought himself. What a damnable
mess he had made of his peaceful, happy home.

Of course he had known for a long time what was the matter with him.
His disgust with himself at the revelation of his own weakness dated
from a long time ago; but the progress of his passing from perfectly
pure and normal thoughts about the girl to cravings that he struggled
with as morbid impurities was so subtle that it defied analysis. At
first when he put his hand on her head, or patted her shoulder, every
thought behind the fatherly gesture was itself fatherly; and then,
without anything to startle one by a recognition of change, the time
had come when he felt a slight thrill in touching her, when he was
always seeking occasions or excuses for doing it, when the wider the
contact the more massive was his satisfaction. Her white neck, her
round fore-arms, her thin wrists, irresistibly attracted a caress. He
could not keep his hands off her--and it distressed and worried him
whenever he saw anybody else doing quite innocently w