"Yet you look troubled. Well, we'll talk it over again. You've worked
your brain too hard to be clear about anything just now,"--looking down
on him with the questioning pity of a surgeon examining a cancer. "I
must go on now, David. I'll meet you at the church in an hour."

"You are going to the house, Palmer?"

"Yes. Good night."

Gaunt drew back his hand, glancing at the cold, tranquil face, the mild
blue eyes.

"Good night,"--following him with his eyes as he rode away.

An Anglo-Saxon, with every birthmark of that slow, inflexible race. He
would make love philosophically, Gaunt sneered. A made man. His thoughts
and soul, inscrutable as they were, were as much the accretion of
generations of culture and reserve as was the chalk in his bones or the
glowless courage in his slow blood. It was like coming in contact with
summer water to talk to him; but underneath was--what? Did Dode know?
Had he taken her in, and showed her his unread heart? Dode?

How stinging cold it was!--looking up drearily into the drifting heaps
of gray. What a wretched, paltry balk the world was! What a noble part
he played in it!--taking out his pistol. Well, he could pull a trigger,
and let out some other sinner's life; that was all the work God thought
he was fit for. Thinking of Dode all the time. _He_ knew her! _He_ could
have summered her in love, if she would but have been passive and happy!
He asked no more of her than that. Poor, silent, passionate Dode! No one
knew her as he knew her! What were that man's cold blue eyes telling her