He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought, "how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?—Poor little girl—she was grateful though!"
Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that evening, told him.
"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence, "to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth. Rachel—God bless her—I'll show her what I'm like...."
He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town.
CHAPTER V
MARCH 13th: RACHEL'S HEART
"When God smote His hands together, and struck out the soul at a spark,
Into the organized glory of things, from drops of the dark,—
Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power in the form,
As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little ground-worm?
'I have sinned,' she said."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.