In her moral universe, sin and virtue were two separate
entities, as easily distinguished on the surface as any other phenomena.
That a mere feeling, not produced by a disordered liver, could make a
man wear that drawn and desperate look in his face, appeared to her both
unnatural and reprehensible.
But Abel did not appear, though Sarah awaited his entrance with a
bottle in her hand. As soon as he had turned his mare out to pasture, he
crossed the road to the mill, and stopping beside the motionless wheel,
watched the excited swallows fly back and forth overhead. He knew how a
man felt who was given a life sentence in prison for an act committed in
a moment of madness. Why he had ever asked Judy to marry him--why he
had gone on calmly approaching the day of his wedding--he could no more
explain than he could explain the motives which impelled him to the
absurdities in a nightmare. It was all a part of the terrible and yet
useful perversity of life--of the perversity that enables a human being
to pass from inconsistency to inconsistency without pausing in his
course to reflect on his folly.
In front of him was the vivid green rise in the meadow, which showed
like a burst of spring in the midst of the November landscape.
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