receive your apology. Till you _do_ come to your senses, go your way by
yourself. I have no more to say to you."

Geoffrey set his teeth, and came one step nearer. Arnold's eyes met his,
with a look which steadily and firmly challenged him--though he was
the stronger man of the two--to force the quarrel a step further, if he
dared. The one human virtue which Geoffrey respected and understood
was the virtue of courage. And there it was before him--the undeniable
courage of the weaker man. The callous scoundrel was touched on the
one tender place in his whole being. He turned, and went on his way in
silence.

Left by himself, Arnold's head dropped on his breast. The friend who had
saved his life--the one friend he possessed, who was associated with
his earliest and happiest remembrances of old days--had grossly insulted
him: and had left him deliberately, without the slightest expression of
regret. Arnold's affectionate nature--simple, loyal, clinging where
it once fastened--was wounded to the quick. Geoffrey's fast-retreating
figure, in the open view before him, became blurred and indistinct. He
put his hand over his eyes, and hid, with a boyish shame, the hot tears
that told of the heartache, and that honored the man who shed them.

He was still struggling with the emotion which had overpowered him, when
something happened at the place where the roads met.

The four roads pointed as nearly as might be toward the four points of
the compass. Arnold was now on the road to the eastward, having advanced
in that direction to meet Geoffrey, between two and three hundred yards
from the farm-house inclosure before which he had kept his watch. The
road to the westward, curving away behind the farm, led to the nearest