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's bed, and in imagination he saw the girl lying there white and unconscious. Suddenly, however, the shadow disappeared. The figure rose into the light and crossed the room. It was Harriet. She wore the same gown she had worn an hour before. She stood for a moment in the light, as if placing something on the mantel-piece, and then resumed her seat at the table. The shadow was on the wall again. He looked at it steadily for twenty minutes. His feet had sunk deeper into the loam and felt wet and cold. Slowly he trudged back through the lane. Mrs. Floyd had lied to him. The girl was not ill. At the street corner he stopped. For an instant he was tempted to go to the hotel and ask Mrs. Floyd if he could see Harriet for a moment, that he might catch her in another lie, and then and there face her in it, but he felt too sick at heart. Harriet had not swooned. Mrs. Floyd had not undressed her and put her to bed. She had made up the story to excite his sympathy and gain a point. He groaned as he started on towards Bradley's. Mrs. Floyd had tried to get Bates to marry the girl, and now was attempting the same thing with him. And why? At the gate of Bradley's house he stopped. Through the window he saw Luke and his wife at supper. They had not waited for him. He would not go in. He could not eat or talk to them. He wanted to be alone to decide what course to pursue. He crossed the road and plunged into the densest part of a pine forest. He came to a heap of pine-needles that the wind had massed together, and sank down on it, hugged his knees to his breast, and groaned. He wanted to tell his whole story to some one--any one who would listen and advise him. He could not decide for himself--his power of reasoning was gone. Suddenly he rose to his feet and started up the mountain. Taking a short cut, he reached the Hawkbill road, and, with rapid, swinging strides, began to climb the mountain. As he got higher among the craggy peaks, that rose sombre and majestic in the moonlight, the air grew more rarified and his breath came short. He could see the few lights of the village scattered here and there in the dark valley, and hear the clangor of the cast-iron bell at the little church. It was prayer-meeting night. After a while he left the main road, and without any reason at all for so doing, he plunged into the tangle of laurel, rhododendron bushes, vines, and briers. The soles of his shoes had
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