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.