vanity of the old bachelor would have been flattered to the full, had not
his heart come first, and forestalled the delight.

So absorbed was I in considering these things, that the time passed like
one of my thoughts; and before I knew I found myself on the verge of the
perilous moor over which Harry had ridden in the teeth and heart of the
storm. How smooth yet cruel it looked in its thick covering of snow! There
was heather beneath, within which lay millions of purple bells, ready to
rush out at the call of summer, and ring peals of merry gladness, making
the desolate place not only blossom but rejoice as the rose. And there
were cold wells of brown water beneath that snow, of depth unknown, which
nourished nothing but the green grass that hid the cold glare of their
presence from the eyes of the else warefully affrighted traveller. And I
thought of Adela when I thought of the heather; and of some other woman
whom I had known, when I thought of the wells.

When I came home, I told Adela where I had been, and what a desolate place
it was. And the flush that rose on her pale cheek was just like the light
of the sunset which I had left shining over the whiteness of that snowy
region. And I said to myself: "It _is_ so. And I trust it may be well."

As I walked home, I had bethought myself of a story which I had brought
down with me in the hope of a chance of reading it, but which Adela's
illness had put out of my mind; for it was only a child's story; and
although I hoped older people might find something in it, it would have
been absurd to read it without the presence of little children. So I said
to Adela:

"Don't you know any little children in Purleybridge, Adela?"