he had known that his own child was beside him. He told her, however,
amusing stories as they went along. Once or twice he turned to look at
her. Something familiar in her laugh caught his attention. He could not
trace it. He could not tell that it was like a faint echo of his own.

When they reached the park where the old abbey was, Telford detached
himself from the rest of the party and wandered alone through the paths
with their many beautiful surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes,
rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a
stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the
end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern
Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who
had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his
companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be
here. His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been
sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as
to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain
on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life
backward--he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have
been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman--to
him always the girl--whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman,
the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery.
She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did
go after all was over.

He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had
anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he
felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never,
justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the
long silent cloisters.