“The night she died I went down by the edge of the water and tramped along the beach the night through, yearning to throw myself in and get to him. I was half mad, I think, and could I have reached that black heart then, I fear I should have shamed my manhood by not leaving the villain time to defend himself. The next night, that is, last night, I was calmer, for as I had not slept nor eaten, I was not so full of lustyhood, and sending the others away, I sat by my darling the night through, alone, save when the poor wife came and I would not let her stay. Poor Barbara! I’ve not remembered her grief as I should; but mine swallowed up all else, because it was so much bigger and stronger than all else. So sitting by her, and reading that gentle, subtle smile that mayhap you marked upon her pretty mouth-- How can I tell you, Will? Didst ever grasp a handful of sea sand and try to hold it fast?” “Ay, and felt it slip, grain by grain, between my fingers.” “Yes. You catch my meaning, as I knew you would. Even like those grains of sand, my fierce desire for that man’s life slipped and slipped away, and what I had deemed a noble vengeance grew to seem only a brutal thirst for blood, and the thought of him and of his offense seemed to fade into the forgotten years whose record is closed. Perhaps I slept, perhaps I dreamed without sleeping, but all at once it seemed to me that my maid stood beside me, close, and yet so far away I dared not put out a hand to touch her; and that smile was on her lips, and someway it seemed to speak its meaning without words, and the meaning was, ‘To him that overcometh’-- That was all, and yet, something,--that dear spirit or mine own heart, or my memory of that Book she ever made me read to her all through the last year,--something told me that it was to him that overcometh his own self, to him who can trust his vengeance to the Lord and forego it for himself,--to such an one that the path lies open to the place where Lora has gone; but to the man of bloodshed and heady violence that path is no more to be traced than a highway through this wilderness. “But when the daylight came, and I had eaten and slept, I began to think ’t was all a fantasy bred of long watching and fasting, and that my first thought was the best, and even I fancied that I was growing old and my hardihood was on the wane, and the cold apathy of age was what held my hand; and so, tossed this way and that, and sore bestead with doubt and anguish, I turned to some other for calmer counsel and a juster view. In the old days I would have sought a priest, but now I turn to you, Will; give me your counsel,--tell me where is my right.”