This elegant superstructure, a purely mental product of my own, had fallen away, revealing the erring, passionate nature beneath. But, deeply as I mourned the fall of my idol, I felt still more keenly a sense of personal injury, because the inner structure on which I had been building, had not spoken out and said, "I shall contaminate you. I am not fit for the touch, of your fine hands." Clearly there could no longer be any sympathy between Rebecca and me. I avoided any occasion for private interview with the girl. Meeting her casually in the lane, or at the neighbors' houses, I acknowledged her presence with a nod or a smile, colder, I knew, than as if I had ignored her utterly. She understood; she was quiet and unobtrusive. She made no attempt to break down the wall thus established between us. And I was determined, on the whole, to be more than just with Rebecca. I would be kind to her in her disgrace. I would palliate her weakness as far as I could consistently with a pure and high standard of action. I even congratulated myself on the magnanimity of my intentions, except when I met the clear, sad gaze of those dispassionate eyes. Then I experienced an unaccountable sensation, as though I had received a blow inwardly, that staggered me, for an instant, in my fine conceptions of honor, and set my conclusions out of order. The Wallencampers were quick to note the estrangement between us, and affirmed that "Beck was mad, and wouldn't speak to teacher, along o' teacher's goin' with Beck's beau." This gratuitous solution of the mystery was not evolved in my presence. Still I knew, that all through those lonely, suffering days, it was often repeated to Rebecca; that those who had borne the girl any grudge, or deemed that she was taking airs above them, took pains, now, that the taunt should reach her ears; and even the children, who had always loved her, uttered it before her with childish thoughtlessness. But, for the Cradlebow; his bright dream of seeking his fortune over wide seas and in distant lands, his dreadless enthusiasm in the belief that he should find so much waiting for him in that unsounded world, his determination, above all, to acquit himself truthfully and bravely--all these made him, to my mind, ever an object of more inspiring and romantic interest.