And so, in the dark valley into which his path had taken its
unlooked-for twist, he wondered not a little as he groped. He
didn't care what awful crash might overtake him, with what ignominy
or what monstrosity he might yet he associated--since he wasn't
after all too utterly old to suffer--if it would only be decently
proportionate to the posture he had kept, all his life, in the
threatened presence of it. He had but one desire left--that he
shouldn't have been "sold."
CHAPTER IV
Then it was that, one afternoon, while the spring of the year was
young and new she met all in her own way his frankest betrayal of
these alarms. He had gone in late to see her, but evening hadn't
settled and she was presented to him in that long fresh light of
waning April days which affects us often with a sadness sharper
than the greyest hours of autumn. The week had been warm, the
spring was supposed to have begun early, and May Bartram sat, for
the first time in the year, without a fire; a fact that, to
Marcher's sense, gave the scene of which she formed part a smooth
and ultimate look, an air of knowing, in its immaculate order and
cold meaningless cheer, that it would never see a fire again.
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