Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:

This was the end. I could not meet him now,

To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,

And draw him from the red entanglement

Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life.

God pardon me! My heart that moment held

No drop of pity toward this wretched soul;

And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,

I fled amidst the savage silences

Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone