immediately came a strange misgiving into his mind. He felt as if he had
taken to himself something good and beautiful doubtless in itself, but
which might be the exchange for one more suited to him, that he must now
give up. The intellect, which was the prominent point in Septimius,
stirred and heaved, crying out vaguely that its own claims, perhaps, were
ignored in this contract. Septimius had perhaps no right to love at all;
if he did, it should have been a woman of another make, who could be his
intellectual companion and helper. And then, perchance,--perchance,--there
was destined for him some high, lonely path, in which, to make any
progress, to come to any end, he must walk unburdened by the affections.
Such thoughts as these depressed and chilled (as many men have found them,
or similar ones, to do) the moment of success that should have been the
most exulting in the world. And so, in the kiss which these two lovers had
exchanged there was, after all, something that repelled; and when they
parted they wondered at their strange states of mind, but would not
acknowledge that they had done a thing that ought not to have been done.
Nothing is surer, however, than that, if we suffer ourselves to be drawn
into too close proximity with people, if we over-estimate the degree of
our proper tendency towards them, or theirs towards us, a reaction is sure
to follow.

* * * * *

Septimius quitted Rose, and resumed his walk towards the village. But now
it was near sunset, and there began to be straggling passengers along the
road, some of whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all seemed
wearied. Among them one form appeared which Rose soon found that she
recognized. It was Robert Hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand,
broken at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of his shirt,
and suspended in a handkerchief; and he walked weariedly, but brightened