The Zeit-Geist
onlit river. The weary girl plied her oars, looking carefully for th
glamour of light she could see everything; and yet in that rapid glance, deluded, no doubt, into supposing
with a look of haggard a
imes is to act without a thought as to how his inner self accords with the action, at least till we have attained to a higher level of civilisation. Toyner had no uniform, nor had he mastered the philoso
out, when she put her hand to tether the boat, she felt his hand
again the next night? She thought of her father, and her heart was full of pity; she thought that her own plans were baffled, and she was enraged. Both sentiments fused into keener hatred of Toyner; but she remem
ing up at Toyner, trying to pry into his attitude toward her. At the end
. He might have been escorting her from a dance, so quietly they walked together, except that the ques
," he said. "I have been patrolling the shore all night
g to do now? It's a pretty mean sort of business this you've taken t
know that when a man shoots another man he's got to be found and shut up for the good of the country and for his own good too. It's the kindest
," she suggeste
t. "I hope he won
him, knowing that it's like to come
soothe her. He had anot
you. It's natural that you should look upon me as an enemy just now; but all the police in the country are more your enemies than I am.
as small chance even then that he would cease to watch her the next night and the next. He had shown both resolutio
out of the mire yourself and spend your
one else to lead him into low habits and keep him there. He had, in fact, been his greatest enemy; bu
reacher 'ud be finer perhaps; but this came to hand and seemed the thing for me to do. It
make his position seem right to her. He had no hope in it-no hope of persuading her, least of all of bringing her nearer to him;
r; I want to know one thing, honour bright-that is," scornfu
ould bestow upon a naughty, ignorant child. "We
eason for you to hang about me any longer. You know what my life has been, and you know that through it all I've kept myself li
edge of her manner and the modulations in her voice, to have a pretty true instinct as to when she was lying and when she was not; but he did not kn
duty to see that you don't communicate with him. You've fooled me to-night, and I'll have
resolute; now there was only one thing to be done. After all
ear that there was in her heart an inward softness toward him which she had never yet revealed. With womanly instinct she played her little part wel
"There isn't anything that I could do for you, Ann, that
it in at first that she
-she put well-feigned shyness into her tone-"that you weren't the sort that would turn away from us
but it ain't no good-it won't do any good to him in the long run, and it would be wrong for me to do anything but just what I ought to do as constable. When
rate resolve. She had been standing before him in the moonlight with downcast face; now she suddenl
ant me to sign the pledge, and to stop going to dance
sister if she would only let him came before his heart now, lit through and through with the
few steps n
nervous gasp in her throat before she could go on)-"and he'd be awfully frightened. Oh, you don't know how frightened he'd be! If I thought they were going to do that to him, it would just kill me. I'll do anything; I wouldn't mind so much if they'd take me and hang me instead-it wouldn't scare me so much: but father would be just like a child, crying and crying and crying, if they kept him in jail and were going to do that in the e
perate temptation. He answered, and his tone and manner gave her no glimpse of the shock of opposing fo
ot do i
inst him. Don't turn against me; I need your help-oh, I need it! I never professed to care about you; but if your fa
come a ghastly fear that he was going to yield, and faith and hope fled from him. He saw himself standing there face to fac
st try and think how it would be if he was lying wounded like Walker and so
ed and taken care of comfortably until he died, I wouldn't want any
and indifferent. She was so accustomed to his appearance-the carefulness of his dress, the grave eyes, and the thin, drooping moustache-that her mind by habit f
it and Christa will do it; and you can teach us all you've a mind to, day in and day out, and we'll learn if we can. Isn't it far better to save Christa and me
d yet he had taught himself to do it. He succeeded in speaking steadily now, in the same strong voice in which he had learnt to pray at meetings. It was not exactly his natural voice. It sounded sanctimonio
rom her purpose. He realised only the awful weakness and wickedness of his heart. He seemed to see those appetites which, up to a few months before, had poss
t do it, Ann. In God's strengt
Oh, my God!" He turned his back upon her and went quickly to the village, only looking to see that at so