e it impossible to be sure of his
footing; and the various ruts and inequalities, common to all American
turn-pikes, and aggravated by the half-frozen snow covering, caused him
several slips and stumbles; trifling matters enough at other times, but
now, when every unnecessary breath and false step would count up
terribly, in the end, quite sufficiently serious.

The vigorous motion, however, sent the blood singing through his body
from head to foot. He felt exhilarated and braced. The driving snow
melted pleasantly on his warm face, and ran down into his
thickly-curling beard, crusted over with frozen breath and sleet. The
cold air came long and refreshingly into his wide-open nostrils. He took
off his fur cap and threw open the breast of his pea-jacket. His
exuberant physical sensations wrought a corresponding effect upon his
previous mental gloom: he found himself looking to the future with
dawnings of a new hope and cheerfulness. At no time in his life had he
felt himself existing through so wide and full a range. He was a man now
in full breadth and height, and, as he looked back upon his previous
life, he could trace, as from a lofty vantage-ground, the plan and
bearing of his former thoughts and deeds.

He remarked the wide discrepancies between what he had proposed and what
he had accomplished. How insignificant circumstances had effected
momentous results! He saw how, whenever failure and dishonor had
filtered in, it was where weakness, self-indulgence, or untruthfulness,
had left an opening. He saw how one wrong had been a sure and easy path
to another, until in the end he had groveled face downward in the mire.

His mind turned on the two women between whom his path had lain: how
highly he had aimed, and how low he had fallen! How enviable would have
been his fate had he consistently kept to either! for each had been
peerless in her way. How despicable was his position having greedily
grasped at both! And now the one was dying, and the other degraded like
himself. A worthy record that!

One was dying: yes, that he knew, and felt that upon his speed and
resolution did it depend whether in this world he might hope for the
blessing of forgiveness from her lips. The thought urged him on,
like an ever-fretting spur. He butted yet more swiftly into the
darkness and against the reeling snow-flakes, and the road lay in
steadily-lengthening stretches behind him. She was waiting for him--that
he felt--and was strivi