Another pleading--another parting--So he turned sharply and strode into the thickets of the close brushwood, among which the white mists of night were hanging.

He thought, as he stepped resolutely and quickly on, with a stern face, and heavy heart, that he heard a wild sobbing cry in the distance, and that was poor Nan's farewell.
So Devereux glided on like a ghost, through the noiseless thicket, and scarcely knowing or caring where he went, emerged upon the broad open plateau, and skirting the Fifteen Acres, came, at last, to a halt upon the high ground overlooking the river--which ran, partly in long trains of silver sparkles, and partly in deep shadow beneath him.

Here he stopped; and looked towards the village where he had passed many a pleasant hour--with a profound and remorseful foreboding that there were no more such pleasant hours for him; and his eye wandered among the scattered lights that still twinkled from the distant windows; and he fancied he knew, among them all, that which gleamed pale and dim through the distant elms--the star of his destiny; and he looked at it across the water--a greater gulf severed them--so near, and yet a star in distance--with a strange mixture of sadness and defiance, tenderness and fury..