After tea he went by himself to nurse these wretched thoughts, and
although the sight of Ida had suggested them, he went on to think of
himself, and soon became so absorbed in his own misery that he quite
forgot about her, and, failing to rejoin the girls that evening, Ida had
to go home alone, which was a great disappointment to her. But it was,
perhaps, quite as well, on the whole, for both of them that he was not
thrown with her again that evening.

It is never fair to take for granted that the greatness of a sorrow or a
loss is a just measure of the fault of the one who causes it. Madeline
was not willingly cruel. She felt sorry in a way for Henry whenever his
set lips and haggard face came under her view, but sorry in a dim and
distant way, as one going on a far and joyous journey is sorry for the
former associates he leaves behind, associates whose faces already, ere
he goes, begin to grow faded and indistinct. At the wooing of Cordis her
heart had awaked, and in the high, new joy of loving, she scorned the
tame delight of being loved, which, until then, had been her only idea of
the passion.

Henry presently discovered that, to stay in the village a looker-on while
the love affair of Madeline and Cordis progressed to its consummation,
was going to be too much for him. Instead of his getting used to the
situation, it seemed to grow daily more insufferable. Every evening the
thought that they were together made him feverish and restless till
toward midnight, when, with the reflection that Cordis had surely by that
time left her, came a possibility of sleep.

And yet, all this time he was not conscious of any special hate toward
that young man.. If he had been in his power he would probably have left