It is the mere force of habit, I suppose.

After all these years of liking, the link between us is not to be broken, even by the deepest wrong that one man can do another." The spring twilight was closing in as he crossed the bridge and walked briskly along an avenue of leafless trees at the side of the green.

The place had a peaceful rustic look at this dusky hour.

There were no traces of that modern spoiler the speculative builder just hereabouts; and the quaint old houses near the barracks, where lights were twinkling feebly here and there, had a look of days that are gone, a touch of that plaintive poetry which pervades all relics of the past.

Gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards John Saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in.
"I will make no further pretence of enmity," he said to himself; "I will not keep up this farce of estrangement.