"Take something to eat, then go home to your mother. The world is not all ended because a golden-haired lassie has chosen to run away from you. Women are all very well," continued Mark, with an air of oracular wisdom, "but the man who trusted his whole heart in them would not be a wise man."
"Then I have been foolish," said Earle, "for I trusted my life and my love together."
He was standing up then, looking around him with vague, bewildered eyes.
"I am to go home, Mark?" he said at last.
And the farmer, believing that air and exercise would be best for him, said "Yes."
But Earle turned away with a sick shudder from the food that was offered to him.
"I could sooner eat ashes," he said.
And they forebore to press him.
"You will feel better to-morrow," said Mark. "A night's sleep makes a wonderful difference in our way of looking at matters."
But Mattie and her mother followed him with wistful eyes.