Gaunt turned away, and hurried down the hill, his heart throbbing and aching against his bony side with the breathless pain which women, and such men as he, know. Her hand was cold, as she gave it to him; some pain had chilled her blood: was it because she bade him good-bye forever, then? Was it? He knew it was not: his instincts were keen as those of the old Pythoness, who read the hearts of men and nations by surface-trifles. Gaunt joined the old man, and began talking loosely and vaguely, as was his wont,--of the bad road, and the snow-water oozing through his boots,--not knowing what he said. She did not care; he would not cheat himself: when he told her to-night what he meant to do, she heard it with a cold, passive disapproval,--with that steely look in her dark eyes that shut him out from her. "You are sincere, I see; but you are not true to yourself or to God": that was all she said. She would have said the same, if he had gone with her brother. It was a sudden stab, but he forgave her: how could she know that God Himself had laid this blood-work on him, or the deathly fight his soul had waged against it? She did not know,--nor care. Who did? The man plodded doggedly through the melting snow, with a keener sense of the cold biting through his threadbare waistcoat, of the solitude and wrong that life had given him,--his childish eyes turning to the gray depth of night, almost fierce in their questioning,--thinking what a failure his life had been. Thirty-five years of struggle with poverty and temptation! Ever since that day in the blacksmith's shop in Norfolk, when he had heard the call of the Lord to go and preach His word, had he not striven to choke down his carnal nature,--to shut his eyes to all beauty and love,--to unmake himself, by self-denial, voluntary pain? Of what use was it? To-night his whole nature rebelled against this carnage before him,--his duty; scorned it as brutal; cried out for a life as peaceful and meek as that of Jesus, (as if that were not an absurdity in a time like this,) for happiness, for this woman's love; demanded it, as though these things were its right!