at the thought of the unknown lives lived in this place, the past joys, the forgotten sorrows.  What did it mean for me, the incredible and caressing beauty of the scene?  Not only did it not comfort me, but it seemed to darken the gloom of my own unhappy mind.  Suddenly, as with a surge of agony, my misery flowed in upon me.  I clutched the rail where I stood, and bowed my head down in utter wretchedness.  There came upon me, as with a sort of ghastly hopefulness, the temptation to leave it all, to put my case back into God’s hands.  Perhaps it was to this that I was moving?  There might be a new life waiting for me, but it could not well be as intolerable as this.  Perhaps nothing but silence and unconsciousness awaited me, a sleep unstirred by any dream.  Even Maud, I thought, in her sorrow, would understand.  How long I stood there I do not know, but the air darkened about me and the mist rose in long veils about the pasture with a deadly chill.  But then there came back a sort of grim courage into my mind, that not so could it be ended.  The thought of Maud and the children rose before me, and I knew I could not leave them, unless I were withdrawn from them.  I must face it, I must fight it out; though I could and did pray with all my might that God might take away my life:  I thought with what an utter joy I should feel the pang, the faintness, of death creep over me there in the dim pasture; but I knew in my heart that it was not to be; and soon I went slowly back through the thickening gloom.  I found Maud awaiting me:  and I know in that moment that some touch of the dark conflict I had been through had made itself felt in her mind; and indeed I think she read something of it in my face, from the startled glance she turned upon me.  Perhaps it would have been better if in that quiet hour I could have told her the thought which had been in my mind; but I could not do that; and indeed it seemed to me as though some unseen light had sprung up for me, shooting and broadening in the darkness.  I apprehended that I was no longer to suffer, I was to fight.  Hitherto I had yielded to my misery, but the time was come to row against the current, not to drift with it.

It was dark when we left the little inn; the moon had brightened to a crescent of pale gold; the last dim orange stain of sunset still slept above the mist.  It seemed to me as though I had somehow touched the bottom.  How could I tell?  Perhaps the same horrible temptation would beset me, again and again, deepening into a despairing purpose; the fertile mind built up rapidly a dreadful vista of possibilities, terrible facts that might have to be faced.  Even so the dark mood beckoned me again; better to end it, said a hollow voice, better to let your dear ones suffer the worst, with a sorrow that will lessen year by year, than sink into a broken shadowed life of separation and restraint—­but again it passed; again a grim resolution came to my aid.