He could get to her to-night.  She was only twenty or twenty-two miles away, as the crow flies—­say half an hour’s journey if one had the wings of a heron.  He could rush home, jump into his gig, and send the horse at a gallop; he could get there by road or rail, somehow; he could telegraph, telling her not to go to bed, telling her to go to the station and wait for him there.

Then he would walk with her in the moonlight by the sea, on the wet sand, close to the breaking waves.  When they came back to the Institution no light would be showing from any of the windows, and she might say, “I’m shut out.  When they come down to let me in, won’t they make a fuss?” But he would say, “You are not going in there again.”  “What,” she would say, “are you taking me back to Vine-Pits after only two days?  Don’t you think Mrs. Dale will be angry?”

Then he would say, “I’m not taking you back.  I’m going to take you half across the world with me.  I’ve tried hard, Norah, but I can’t do without you.  I own up, I’m beat, I take the consequences.  I’m not good, I’m bad.  I’ve done wicked things, and now I’m ripe for the crowning wickedness.  I’m going to break my wife’s heart, dishonor my children’s name, and take you down to hell with me.”

Or if he could not say and do all that, he might at least do this.  He could pick her up in his arms and wade out to sea with her; he could whisper and kiss and wade until the ribbed sand went from under his feet; and then he would swim, go on whispering, kissing, and swimming until his strength failed him—­yes, he could drown himself and her, so that they died locked fast in each other’s arms, taking in death the embraces that had been denied them in life.

He was crying now as a child cries, abandoning himself to his tears, not troubling to wipe them away, temporarily overcome by self-pity.  But soon he shook off this particular form of weakness, and thought, “What nonsense comes into a man’s head, when he’s once off his right balance—­such wild nonsense, such mad nonsense.  Drown her, poor innocent.  Make her pay my bill.  Think of it even—­when I’d swim the Atlantic to save her life, if it was in danger.”

And then the thought that had been the impetus or origin of these fantastic imaginations presented itself again, and more strongly than before.  He said to himself, “This letter is my death-warrant.  I can’t go on.  It is my death-warrant.”

He had made straight for the main ride, and he walked straight along it in the direction of Kibworth Rocks.  As he drew toward them it was as if the spirit of the dead man called him, seeming to say:  “Come and keep me company.  Our old quarrel is over.  You and I understand each other now.  We are two of a kind, just as like as two hogs from one litter—­you the sanctimonious psalm-singer and I the conscienceless profligate—­we are brothers at last in our beastliness.”

Dale walked with his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtfully looking at the trees, and trying to suppress his wild imaginations.  But he could not suppress them.  The dead man seemed to say, “Don’t be a humbug, don’t pretend.  You know we are alike.  Why, when you looked in the glass the other day, you saw the resemblance.  You saw my puffy eye-orbits and my pendulous lip in your own face.”