his duty as a man towards an innocent woman,--a woman, though in part a
savage,--now transformed into a gentle, noble creature of delight and
goodness. How had he deserved it? He had sown the storm, it was but
just that he should reap the whirlwind; he had scattered thistles,
could he expect to gather grapes? He knew that the sympathy of all his
father's house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged. He
was glad it was so. Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry a
thing that he, a man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who had
given him birth, as a kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set him
aside, and should use for that purpose a helpless, confiding girl. To
revenge one's self for wrong to one's self is but a common passion, which
has little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman,
--and, before all, woman,--has some touch of nobility, is redeemed by
loyalty. For his act there was not one word of defence to be made, and
he was not prepared to make it.

The cigars and liquors were beside him, but he did not touch them. He
seemed very far away from the ordinary details of his life: he knew he
had before him hard travel, and he was not confident of the end. He
could not tell how long he sat there. --After, a time the ticking of
the clock seemed painfully loud to him. Now and again he heard a cab
rattling through the Square, and the foolish song of some drunken
loiterer in the night caused him to start painfully. Everything jarred
on him. Once he got up, went to the window, and looked out. The moon
was shining full on the Square. He wondered if it would be well for him
to go out and find some quiet to his nerves in walking. He did so. Out
in the Square he looked up to his wife's window. It was lighted. Long
time he walked up and down, his eyes on the window. It held him like a
charm. Once he leaned against the iron railings of the garden and looked
up, not moving for a time. Presently he saw the curtain of the window