It was quite dark now; all the light came from a pale wild sky. The
moon was young, and feebly intermittent with the clouds.
Barney, hastening along, was all trembling and unnerved. He tried to
persuade himself that the woman whom he had just left was ill, and
laboring under some sudden aberration of mind; yet, in spite of
himself, he realized a terrible rationality in it. Little as he had
been among the village people of late, and little as he had heard of
the village gossip, he knew the story of Richard Alger's desertion
of Sylvia Crane. Was he not like Richard Alger in his own desertion
of Charlotte Barnard? and had not Sylvia been as little at fault
in taking one for the other as if they had been twin brothers?
Might there not be a closer likeness between characters than
features--perhaps by a repetition of sins and deformities? and might
not one now and then be able to see it?
Then the question came, was Charlotte like Sylvia? Was Charlotte even
now sitting watching for him with that awful eagerness which comes
from a hunger of the heart? He had seen one woman's wounded heart,
and, like most men, was disposed to generalize, and think he had seen
the wounded hearts of all women.
When he had reached the turn of the road, and had come out on the
main one where his house was, and where Charlotte lived, he stood
still, looking in her direction.
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