For he went back over every word he had
spoken that night, forcing himself to go through with it,--every
cold, poisoned word. It was a fitting penance. "There is no
such thing as love in real life:" he had told her that! How he
had stood, with all the power of his "divine soul" in his will,
and told her,--he,--a man,--that he put away her love from him
then, forever! He spared himself nothing,--slurred over nothing;
spurned himself, as it were, for the meanness, in which he had
wallowed that night. How firm he had been! how kind! how
masterful!--pluming himself on his man's strength, while he held
her in his power as one might hold an insect, played with her
shrinking woman's nature, and trampled it under his feet, coldly
and quietly! She was in his way, and he had put her aside. How
the fine subtile spirit had risen up out of its agony of shame,
and scorned him! How it had flashed from the puny frame standing
there in the muddy road despised and jeered at, and calmly judged
him! He might go from her as he would, toss her off like a
worn-out plaything, but he could not blind her: let him put on
what face he would to the world, whether they called him a master
among men, or a miser, or, as Knowles did to-night after he
turned away, a scoundrel, this girl laid her little hand on his
soul with an utter recognition: she alone. "She knew him for a
better man than he knew himself that night:" he remembered the
words.
The night was growing murky and bitingly cold: there was no
prospect on the snow-covered hills, or the rough road at his
feet with its pools of ice-water, to bring content into his face,
or the dewy light into his eyes; but they came there, slowly,
while he sat thinking.
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