CHAPTER XXIII.
IN TWO CHARACTERS.
After the wave, the trough of the wave; after action, passion.

Not to sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were to be cast in a mould above the human.
When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the head bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--when Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of his voice.

The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness.

"It is for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands.

But words stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him.
The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but it left the empty house, the empty heart, silence.