Something like the old heathen conception of a divine righteousness in this arbitrary punishment of the evil-doer gave him a transient content.

He did not object therefore to Phebe's hasty visit to Mrs.Sefton at the sea-side, in order to break the news to her.

The inward satisfaction he felt sustained him, and he even set about a piece of work long since begun, a hawk swooping down upon his prey.
The evening on which Phebe reached home again he was more like his former self.

He asked her many questions about the sea, which he had never seen, and told her what he had been doing while she was away.

An old, well-thumbed translation of Plato's Dialogues was lying on the carved dresser behind him, in which he had been reading every night.
Instead of the Bible, he said.
"It was him, Mr.Roland, that gave it to me," he continued; "and listen to what I read last night: 'Those who have committed crimes, great yet not unpardonable, they are plunged into Tartarus, where they go who betray their friends for money, the pains of which they undergo for a year.