She was reading as she walked, and continued to do so the whole way to the stile which led into the Castle Hill.

But now it mattered little if she turned her head.
He let her pass the stile, and himself paused before following.

He was agitated; that which he was about to do seemed harder than he had imagined; he had a horrible fear lest his resolution might fail at the last moment.

The brute in him for an instant almost slept.

The woman in the field yonder was not only the object of his vehement desire; all the nobler possibilities of his nature united to worship her, as the highest and holiest he knew.