But when, that night, he found himself sitting in the appointed place,
and waiting for the coming of the woman he was about to discard, but
whom he loved with all the intensity of his fierce nature, he began to
view the matter in other lights, and to feel his resolution oozing
from him. Whether it was the silence of the place that told upon his
nerves, strained as they were with expectation--for silence, and more
especially silence by night, is a great unveiler of realities,--or the
dread of bitter words, or the prescience of the sharp pang of parting
--for he knew enough of Hilda to know that, what he had to say once
said, she would trouble him no more--whether it was these things, or
whatever it was that affected him, he grew most unaccountably anxious
and depressed. Moreover, in this congenial condition of the atmosphere
of his mind, all its darker and hidden characteristics sprang into a
vigorous growth. Superstitions and presentiments crowded in upon him.
He peopled his surroundings with the shades of intangible deeds that
yet awaited doing, and grew afraid of his own thoughts. He would have
fled from the spot, but he could not fly; he could only watch the
flicker of the moonlight upon the peaceful pool beside him, and--wait.

At last she came with quick and anxious steps, and, though but a few
minutes before he had dreaded her coming, he now welcomed it eagerly.
For our feelings, of whatever sort, when directed towards each other,
are so superficial as compared with the intensity of our fears when we
are terrified by calamity, or the presence, real or fancied, of the
unknown, that in any moment of emergency, more especially if it be of
a mental kind, we are apt to welcome our worst enemy as a drowning man
welcomes a spar.

"At last," he said, with a sigh of relief. "How late you are!"