ain-peaks overhead,
gleaming through the mists and clouds, were of dazzling whiteness, for
none of the frozen snow had yet fallen from their sharp, lance-like
summits.

Journeying on foot from one village to another, Roland roamed about
aimlessly, yet as one hunted, seeking for a safe asylum. He bore his
troubled conscience and aching heart from one busy spot to another,
homesick and self-exiled. Oh, what a fool he had been! Life had been
full to the brim for him with gladness and prosperity, and in trying to
make its cup run over he had dashed it away from his lips forever.

His money was not yet spent, for a very little went a long way among
these simple mountain villages, and in his manner of travelling. He had
not yet been forced to try to earn a living, and he felt no anxiety for
the future. In his boyhood he had learned wood-carving, both in
Switzerland and from old Marlowe, and he had acquired considerable skill
in the art. Some of the panels in his home at Riversborough were the
workmanship of his own hands. It was a craft to turn to in extremity;
but he did not think of it yet.

Labor of any kind would have made the interminable hours pass more
quickly. The carving of a piece of wood might have kept him from
torturing his own heart perpetually; but he did not turn to this slight
solace. There were times when he sat for hours, for a whole age, as it
seemed to him, in some lonely spot, hidden behind a great rock or half
lost in a forest, thinking. And yet it was not thought, but a vague,
mournful longing and remembrance, the past and the absent blended in
dim, shadowy reverie, of which nothing was clear but the sharp anguish
of having forfeited them. There was a Garden of Eden still upon earth,
and he had been dwelling in it. But he had banished himself from it by
his own folly and sin, and when he turned his eyes toward it he could
see only the "flaming brand, and the gate with dreadful faces thronged
and fiery arms." But even Adam had his Eve with him, "to drop some
natural tears, and wipe them soon." He was utterly alone.

If his thoughts, so dazed and bewildered usually, became clear for a
little while, it was always Felicita whose image stood out most
distinctly before him. He had loved her passionately; surely never had
any man loved a woman with the same intensity--so he said to himself.
Even now the very crime he had committed seemed as nothing to him,
because he had been guilty of it for her. His lov