Marner went home, and for a whole day sat alone, stunned by despair,
without any impulse to go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in
his innocence. The second day he took refuge from benumbing
unbelief, by getting into his loom and working away as usual; and
before many hours were past, the minister and one of the deacons
came to him with the message from Sarah, that she held her
engagement to him at an end. Silas received the message mutely, and
then turned away from the messengers to work at his loom again. In
little more than a month from that time, Sarah was married to
William Dane; and not long afterwards it was known to the brethren
in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town.



CHAPTER II

Even people whose lives have been made various by learning,
sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views
of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that
their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are
suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them
know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas--
where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other
forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds
that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps
sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes
dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is
dreamy because it is linked with no memories. But even _their_
experience may hardly enable them thoroughly to imagine what was the
effect on a simple weaver like Silas Marner, when he left his own