Yet, somehow, he felt no sorrow for that.

He knew that if again and yet again he were placed in the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he had done with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley.

He knew that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never felt real repentance.

Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the blow he had given now.

Thus was that day linked with the present, thus had a blow struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the crossroads been repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left him.
A sound now broke the stillness.