The ascetic, stainless priest in him stood off and looked
at this dog of the gutter with his obscene talk, and then
came defeat of soul and body.

"I give up!" he said quietly. "I'll never try again."

He wandered unconsciously to the ferry and, having his
yearly book of tickets in his pocket, took the train for
home from force of habit. He left the cars at a
station several miles from Weir, and wandered across the
country. Just at sundown, covered with mud and weak from
hunger and drunkenness, he crossed the lawn before Lucy's
house and, looking up, saw her.

He had stumbled into a world of peace and purity! A soft
splendor filled the sky and the bay and the green slopes,
with their clumps of mighty forest trees. The air was
full of the scents of flowers and the good-night song of
happy birds. And in the midst of it all, lady of the
great domain, under her climbing rose vines, sat the
young, fair woman, clad in some fleecy white garments,
her head bent, her blue eyes fixed on the
distance--waiting.

George stopped, sobered by a sudden wrench of his heart.
There was the world to which he belonged--there! His
keen eye noted every delicate detail of her beauty and of
her dress. He was of her sort, her kind--he, kicked into
the gutter from that foul shop as a tramp!