George Osborne needed no depressing influence from Nature. He had gone through more trying hours. That day he took the long walk, starting from London Bridge, and, having girt half London, ended at St Paul's, had been much more acutely trying to him; but there was a dull, dark, cold misery about this journey such as he had never felt the like of before. What was he doing? Whither was he leading her? Where was he himself going? He had not been fair to her. He had not been fair to himself. She was looking paler than of old, and when his unexpected glances found her eyes fixed on him, in those eyes there was always a look of mournful brooding and unextinguishable devotion. What would be the end of all this? the end of her? the end of him? Would to God the end of him had come before he had met this girl! Look at her now! The old sprightliness had left her face, and in its place dwelt the more subduing expression of melancholy. What man, being a man and nothing more, and knowing he was dear to that most dear of women, could forbear folding her in his arms, and pressing her to his breast? But there was more in man than humanity. Of old he used to think in addition to humanity there was divinity in man--a possible high and beautiful spirit better and stronger than the unembodied angels. Now--ah, what a blank, dreary waste now! Dreary as that waste of water out there, comfortless as that sky, barren as those ghostly trees. What had man, according to his present rudderless theory, in addition to his humanity? What? Supposing birth was the beginning and death the end of man, what was there more in man than his humanity? The question had never yet presented itself to his mind in that light. It was worth looking at the subject from this point of view before passing it by hastily, finally. Let him look at the case impartially. No. It was dreary enough within and without; he could not stand an examination in the abstract face to face with that dreary landscape, and this dreary mental interior. Let him regard the matter in the concrete. Here was Marie. Here was he. Nothing new had been imported into his humanity since he had seen Marie; nothing old had been taken away. The same code which governed his relations with his fellow-man before he had left Stratford was the code he still held. He would not wilfully injure man or woman now. All the human qualities he had previously considered admirable in man or woman he considered admirable still. Because of any change in his spiritual outlook, he would treat a dog no worse now than a year ago. He had in no way altered his general conduct, or his moral code. He loved and respected his mother as much as ever, and felt as affectionately towards his sisters. What, then, had been changed in him? Nothing but his faith. His faith had not been changed, but lost. It was as though he had possessed ten mental faculties heretofore, and now owned only nine.