Then, all at once, uncalled for, there broke and oozed forth in his heart the old vein of love which had been filled with so hot and full a flood when he was Urith's suitor; he saw her with the old eyes once more, and looked in mental vision once more into the sombre eyes, as he had on the moor, when he lifted her into his saddle, and there came over him that sensation of mingled love and fear. It seemed to him that now only did he understand the cause of that fear; it was fear lest he himself should prove a wreck through lack of love and devotion to her. He thought now of how, after their wedding, on his coming to Willsworthy he had taken her in his arms, how her dark head had lain on his bosom, and he had stooped and kissed her brow, and she had looked up into his face with eyes expressive of perfect confidence, of intensest love. He thought now how he had forced her against her will, against her conscience, to marry him prematurely, after her mother's death, and against the dying command of that mother. He thought how that he had lived on her estate, had been, as it were, her pensioner. He thought also of the efforts she had made, efforts he had perceived, to accommodate herself to him, to meet his humour, to overcome her own gloom, to struggle against the bad habits of slovenliness into which the household had fallen, and to correct her own want of order, because she saw it pained her husband. She had done a great deal for him, and what had he done for her? Grumbled, been peevish, disappointed her. He recalled that evening at the Cakes, where he had slighted her. He thought of how he had trifled with his old regard for Julian, allowed her to lure him away from his wife, and had let her see that he was no more at one with Urith, and that he wished he could have undone the marriage and re-tied the old threads that had bound him to Julian. She--this Julian, had been playing with him--she, for her own ends, had been making mischief between him and his wife--and what had he done? His eyes were opened, and he saw the initials on the glass, and the love-knot between them. With the blood surging to his brow and cheeks, and a fire in his eye, he raised his hand, and angrily brushed his palm over the three panes, effacing utterly the characters there inscribed, then he remained with uplifted hand and forefinger extended, still, as in dream, unconscious that he was being watched. A new thought had occurred to him--that he was about to become a father. A father! and he away at Hall, while the deserted Urith sat at Willsworthy--wan, with tears on her cheek, drip, drip, over the cradle he had treated so insultingly--her cradle, which he had deemed unworthy of his child, and which, for all that, with his child in it, he was inclined to abandon! Then the blood went out of Anthony's face, went back to his heart, as he grew pale and still with the thought of the infamy of the conduct that had been his, had he yielded to the temptation.