Beyond
it, the pines were etched in sharp outlines on the bright blue sky,
where a buzzard was sailing slowly in search of food. The weather was so
perfect that the colours of the fields and the sky borrowed the intense
and unreal look of objects seen in a crystal.
"Well, it's over and done," said Abel to himself; "it's over and done
and I'm glad of it." It seemed to him while he spoke that it was his
life, not his marriage, to which he alluded--that he had taken the
final, the irremediable step, and there was nothing to come afterwards.
The uncertainty and the suspense were at an end, for the clanging of the
prison doors behind him was still in his ears. To-morrow would be
like yesterday, the next year would be like the last. Forgetting his
political ambition, he told himself passionately that there was nothing
ahead of him--nothing to look forward to. Vaguely he realized that
inconsistent and irreconcilable as his actions appeared, they had been,
in fact, held together by a single, connecting thread, that one dominant
feeling had inspired all of his motives. If he had never loved Molly,
he saw clearly now, he should never have rushed into his marriage with
Judy.
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