Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong walked down the street, but shunning the sight of others, he turned at the first opportunity into an unfrequented road.  It led towards the Severn, and hardly knowing how it happened, he crossed a bridge, and soon found himself in the woods that skirt the left bank of that river.  Unconsciously, and as if attracted by some spell, he was directing his course towards the scene of the late disaster.  The walk and the solemn silence of the woods, in which no sound was heard except the cawing of a watchful crow, some sentinel placed to give notice of approaching danger to his companions, gradually subdued the excitement of his feelings.  His pace, at first rapid, relaxed, the light began to play upon the clouds that brooded on his spirits, and he wondered at his fancies and his conduct.

“How could I,” thought he, “be so cruel to my own Faith!  Her life ought to be all sunshine and gladness, and would be but for me, and I must sadden and darken it with the baleful imaginings of a distempered mind.  I must struggle harder and pray oftener and more fervently to be preserved from myself.  And now my soul feels the need of communing with the Infinite Spirit.  What fitter place for adoration than the stillness of these old woods?  Here worldly interruptions cannot come, and the veil between Him and His creature is withdrawn.”

He stopped.  He looked up into the sky, and watched the clouds floating in the blue.  He glanced at the sun flaming in golden magnificence.  His eyes fell on the hoary stems of the giants of the forest.  He saw the trailing arbutus, the delicious herald of warmer suns and softer winds, creeping to his feet, and raised his hands to heaven and repeated the lines of Milton—­

  These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good,
  Almighty, thine this universal frame,
  Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then! 
  Unspeakable, who sitt’st above the heavens,
  To us invisible, or dimly seen
  In these thy lowest works:  yet these declare
  Thy goodness beyond thought and power divine.

He stooped down and picked a few bunches of the arbutus, and put them in his bosom.  “Faith loves flowers,” he said, “and the sweetness and whiteness of these are types of herself.”

He was now quite calm, and realized fully where he was.  It is strange, he thought, how I came hither.  I am like Philip, whom the Spirit caught away.

He continued his walk, striving to drive away the gloomy ideas, which, in spite of his resistance, threatened again to master him.  With his eyes bent upon the ground, he proceeded some distance, when a slight noise attracted his attention.  He raised his eyes, and discovered the cause.  Five or six men were approaching, bearing, between them, something on some boards.  Mr. Armstrong stopped, and, as they came near, perceived, it was the body of the drowned fisherman.

“Fate,” he murmured between his teeth, “has driven me here.  It was meet that the murderer should be confronted by his victim.”