“I am satisfied now that I made a mistake in thinking of love as it should be, not as it really is, and I unwisely built on that foundation, but I blame no one for it; a man who is ignorant should submit to the penalties without complaint. But I shall always think that I should have been very contented had it turned out as I expected; I shall always justify myself with the belief that had Mateel brought as much enthusiasm into our marriage contract as I did, we should have been of great use to each other. I hope you will not think hard of me if I say that she had the experience which I should have had, while I had the innocence and faith in marriage which a wife should possess.” He had little to say after that, and tossed about uneasily in his bed after I put out the light, which was unusual, for I had frequently remarked with surprise that he slept well in the jail, and seemed greatly refreshed by it. Perhaps he had never permitted himself to think of his wife until that evening since he had struggled with Bragg in the woods, and the indiscretion had brought on his old trouble, for if I dozed off, and wakened again, I found him pacing up and down the floor, as he had done so many nights in the house at the mill when he lived alone in it. As I watched him I tried to compute the number of weary miles he had travelled in this manner since the separation; up and down, from the right to the left, carrying his aching and troubled head, which refused him peace night and day; thinking, thinking, thinking; up and down from the right to the left; so the long road was travelled, growing more painful and difficult every day. I followed the road he had been travelling to where it ended and encountered a jail, in which Jo Erring’s hope and ambition, the pride and comfort of my boyhood, were locked up, with my old friend, changed but little, pacing wearily up and down to see that there was no escape. Oh, Jo, my dearest friend, is there nothing I can do to lighten your sorrow? Must I watch you travelling a road which grows more suggestive of the damp of graves with every day’s journey without putting out a hand to help you? Will you continue to put me off with no other reply than tears when I offer to help you until we enter the churchyard together, and I come out alone?