kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to
which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made him doubt--and, strange
to say, it was a painful doubt,--whether he had indeed found the
Unpardonable Sin and found it within himself. The whole question on
which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a
delusion.

"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made
yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have
done with you. Years and years ago, I groped into your hearts, and
found nothing there for my purpose. Get ye gone!"

"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the
way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell
you the truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder
boy Joe has. You are but a crazy fellow,--I told you so twenty years
ago,--neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and a fit
companion of old Humphrey, here!"

He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin
visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had
been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom
he met for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a
company of circus performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to
the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance
as she rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on
the tight rope.

The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed
unsteadily into his face.