It was one of those angers that for a while poison the air and turn all things sour; yet without obscuring the mind--an anger in which the angry one strikes first at that which he loves most, because he loves it most, knowing, too, that the words he speaks are false.

For this, for the present, was the breaking-point in the lad.

He had suffered torments in his soul, ever since the hour in which he had ridden into the gate of his own home after his talk in the empty chapel; he had striven to put away from him that idea for which the girl's words had broken an entrance into his heart.

And now she would give him no peace; she continued to press on him from without that which already pained him within; so he turned on her.
"You wish to be rid of me!" he cried fiercely.
She looked at him with her lips parted, her eyes astonished, and her face gone white.
"What did you say ?" she said.
His conscience pierced him like a sword.

Yet he set his teeth.
"You wish to be rid of me.