A fresh, soft breeze had risen and blew refreshingly in his face, but he never heeded it, for in some moods we take the gifts and graces of Nature as a matter of course, and yield her no thanks or acknowledgment for her gentle benison.

Even the glowing crimson tints of the sunset clouds could not move him to admiration.

A line of Browning came involuntarily to his mind: I will not soil thy purple with my dust; but he was thinking of Elizabeth and not of the sunset.
"I must battle it out with myself," he repeated.

But hours passed, and the moon had risen, and he still lay there, plucking up the heather and flinging it aside in a stupefaction of misery.

It was only when the September darkness stole over the moor that he recollected himself and stumbled to his feet.
He was almost worn out when he unlatched the little gate at the Crow's Nest.