For a minute or so after she was gone the man stood leaning against the door with a dazed look in his pale face. She meant what she said: he had known her long enough to understand that she never forgave—never forgot. Her unbroken will and stubborn strength had held her to enmities all her life, and he knew she was not to be won by such things as won other women. He knew she was harder than most women, but his dull nature could not teach him how bitter must have been the life that rendered her so. He had never thought of it—he did not think of it now. He was not blaming her, and he was scarcely blaming himself. He had tried to make her happy and had failed. There were two causes for the heavy passion of misery that was ruling him, but neither of them was remorse.
His treachery had betrayed him, and he had lost the woman he had loved and worked for. Soul and body were sluggish alike, but each had its dull pang of weight and wretchedness.
“I've come to th' eend now surely,” he said, and, dropping into her seat, he hid his face.
As he sat there a choking lump rose in his throat with a sudden click, and in a minute or so more he was wiping away hot rolling tears with the back of his rough hand.
“I'm forsook somehow,” he said—“aye, I'm forsook. I'm not th' soart o' chap to tak' up wi' th' world. She wur all th' world I cared fur, an' she'll ne'er forgie me, for she's a hard un—she is. Aye! but I wur fond o' her! I wonder what she'll do—I do wonder i' my soul what she's gettin' her mind on!”
It did not occur to him to call to her or go and see what she was doing. He had always stood in some dull awe of her, even when she had been kindest, and now it seemed that they were too far apart for any possibility of approach at reconciliation. So he sat and pondered heavily, the sea air blowing upon him fresh and sweet, the sun shining soft and warm upon the house, and the few common flowers in the strip of garden whose narrow shell walks and borders he had laid out for her himself with much clumsy planning and slow labor.
Then he got up and took his rough working-jacket over his arm.
“I mun go down to th' Mary Anne,” he said, “an' work a bit, or we'll ne'er get her turned o'er afore th' tide comes in. That boat's a moit o' trouble.” And he sighed heavily.
Half-way to the gate he stopped before a cluster of ground honeysuckle, and perhaps for the first time in his life was conscious of a sudden curious admiration for them.
“She's powerful fond o' such loike bits o' things—posies an' such loike,” he said. “Thems some as I planted to please her on th' very day as we were wed. I'll tak' one or two. She's main fond on 'em—fur such a hard un.”