He hugged to himself no flattering delusion; in his judgment Sissy had shown herself heartless and cruel; but he did not therefore argue, as a man of politer mind might have done, that the girl he had loved had never existed, that he had loved an idea and, finding it had no resemblance to the reality, he was justified in casting away both, and turning to luxurious disappointment or to a search for some more worthy recipient of the riches of his heart.  No such train of reasoning occurred to him.  He had thought Sissy was good and unfortunate; he had found her fortunate and guilty of an almost greater degree of callousness than he could forgive; but, nevertheless, Sissy was the person he loved—­his little girl, whom he had brought up, his big girl, in whom he centred all his hopes of happy home and of years of mature affection.  Sissy was still alive, and he could not endure to think of her living on wholly separated from him.  For this reason his mind had no rest in the thought of remaining where he was, or of returning whence he had come, or in the dream of seeking new places.  He could think of no satisfaction except that of being near to her and making her a better girl; yet he had promised to have no dealings with her; and not only that, but he now at length perceived the futility of all such care as he might exercise over her.  He had thought to shield her by his knowledge of the world, and he had found that she, by natural common sense, had a better knowledge of the world than he by experience; he had thought to protect her by his strong arm, and he had found himself flung off, as she might have flung a feeble thing that clung to her for protection.  She was better able to take care of herself in the world than he had been to take care of her, and she did not want his tenderness.  Yet he loved her just as he had ever done, and perceived, in the deep well of his heart’s love and pity, that she did, in sooth, need something—­a tenderer heart it might be—­need it more terribly than he had ever fancied need till now.  He longed unspeakably to give her this—­this crown of womanhood, which she lacked, and in the helplessness of this longing his heart was pining.

“A man isn’t going to die because he has asthma,” had been the doctor’s fiat concerning Bates.  He had come to Chellaston apparently so ill that neither he nor his friends would have been much surprised had death been the order of the day, but as the programme was life, not death, he was forced to plan accordingly.  His plans were not elaborate; he would go back to the clearing; he would take his aunt back from Turrifs to be with him; he would live as he had lived before.

Would he not sell the land? they asked; for the price offered for it was good, and the lonely life seemed undesirable.

No, he would not sell.  It would, he said, be selling a bit of himself; and if there was value in it, it would increase, not diminish, by holding till the country was opened up.  When he was dead, his heirs, be they who they might (this he said mysteriously), could do as they would.  As for him, he would take a man back from this part of the country to work in Alec’s place.  His cough, he said, had been worse since he had been beguiled into leaving his wilderness to travel with Alec; the pure air of the solitude would be better than doctors for him.