as in
my heart," he said, "and Winfield does not profess to be a saint; he's
only just a clean-minded, honest fellow. Was he right, I wonder? Why,
after all, can't I be happy? Let me think now; yes, I will think it out.
Suppose I give up my scheme of revenge; suppose I go away and leave my
plans unrealised. Not that I am going to do it; but suppose, for the
sake of argument, that I did, what then? I should never see her again,
and she would think of me as an Eastern adventurer who proposed to her,
and then was obliged to leave the neighbourhood because he feared the
law or something of that sort. Never see her again!"

He stopped in his walk as though some unseen force barred the way.

"Never see her again!" he repeated time after time. The thought seemed
to stagger him as it became more and more real to him.

"I hate her!" he cried. "Did she not drive me away from her, and in
driving me away sent me to regions which----"

He started on his walk again.

"I loved her last night for a minute; yes, I loved her then. I forgot
everything, and I was in paradise. I loved her; yes, and O God, I
believe I love her now!"

For an hour he walked along with stern, set face. Away in the far
distance he could see the tor which rose up behind the ninth hole, at
the golf links. With that as a landmark, he could not lose his way. Not
that he would have cared if he had. A great passion burned within him,
to which even he had been a stranger.

"Could I--could I--after all, do what I have made up my mind to do?
Could I, out of pure devilry and desire for revenge, drag her name into
the mud of disgrace? Could I make her the byword for gossiping women?
Could I leave her a wrecked, ruined woman just because I----Besides,
what should I feel? Hell! No hell which I have ever entered would be as
deep as that. Talk about a bottomless pit full of fire and brimstone--it
would be nothing to what I should feel."

Again he thought of the woman at the farmhouse, while the story of Aaron
Goudge came back to him; and as he thought, a new feeling rose within
him as though he heard something saying, "Be a man; do the thing that is
right."

"What is right?" he asked. "Suppose I were to go to her now and tell her
everything--everything. What would she do? She would drive me away as
though I were a leper. She told me that she did not love Radford
Leicester, and that she would never marry him, even if he came back
repentant and worthy. How much less w