His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been
sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as
to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain
on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life
backward--he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have
been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman--to
him always the girl--whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman,
the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery.
She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did
go after all was over.
He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had
anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he
felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never,
justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the
long silent cloisters.
There were no visitors about; it was past the usual hour. He came into the
old refectory, and the kitchen with its immense chimney, passed in and out
of the little chapels, exploring almost mechanically, yet remembering what
he saw, and everything was mingled almost grotesquely with three scenes
in his life--two of which we know; the other, when his aged father turned
from him dying and would not speak to him.
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