XIX


'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL
Othello, i. 3.


Poor Ashe got home more dead than alive. His passion had shaken him
like a delirium. He had been swept away by his emotion, and had thrown
to the winds past and future. He felt as the carriage drove away from
Mrs. Fenton's as if he had been swung up and down on some monstrous
wave and dashed, broken and bleeding, on a rough shore. He could not
think; and fortunately for him he was even too benumbed to feel
greatly.

He reached the Hermans' in a sort of half-stupor, in which
indifference, keen joy, and bitter contrition were strangely mingled.
The contrition, however, seemed somehow to belong to the future; it was
what he must endure when the time should come for repentance; the joy
was a present blessing, tingling in his every fibre.

He met Mrs. Herman in the hall. She exclaimed when she saw him, and he
stood smiling at her, swaying as if he were intoxicated.

"What has happened?" she cried. "What have you done to your face?"

The room and his cousin swam before him in a golden mist. He felt that