horse's hoofs. He also had ridden down the same way, choosing to
pass over the absolute spot in which those words had been uttered,
thinking of that moment, as she also was thinking of it. She felt
sure that such had been the case. She knew that it was this that had
brought him there--there on to the foot-traces which they had made
together.

And did he then love her so truly,--with a love so hot, so eager, so
deeply planted in his very soul? Was it really true that a passion
for her had so filled his heart, that his whole life must by that be
made or marred? Had she done this thing to him? Had she so impressed
her image on his mind that he must be wretched without her? Was she
so much to him, so completely all in all as regarded his future
worldly happiness? Those words of his, asserting that love--her
love--was to him a stern fact, a deep necessity--recurred over and
over again to her mind. Could it really be that in doing as she had
done, in giving herself to another after she had promised herself to
him, she had committed an injustice which would constantly be
brought up against her by him and by her own conscience? Had she in
truth deceived and betrayed him,--deserted him because he was poor,
and given herself over to a rich lover because of his riches?

As she thought of this she forgot again that fact--which, indeed,
she had never more than half realized in her mind--that he had
justified her in separating herself from him by his reckless course
of living; that his conduct must be held to have so justified her,
let the pledge between them have been of what nature it might. Now,
as she walked up and down that path, she thought nothing of his
wickedness and his sins; she thought only of the vows to which she
had once listened, and the renewal of those vows to which it was now