Restless and wretched, I took my hat and walked out into the snow. The great fir trees, loaded with the leaden whiteness, were ranged like grim sentinels on each side of the dreary avenue, and beyond these the leafless woods stretched white and cold. The sun had gone in, and the air was full of a heavy lowering sadness--a sort of darkness visible. It was cheerless weather; and as I thought of my domestic misery, and of the clouded world, with all its sins and sorrows, I was more miserable than ever.
Nevertheless, I walked on rapidly, till I came out among the frozen fields of the open country. How desolate looked the snowy meadows, with broad patches of green, thaw-like mildew, and the fallow fields, with snow thick in the furrows and wretched low-lying hedges on every side! Here and there a few miserable small birds were fluttering, starved robins for the most part; and a kestrel was hunting the furrow, hovering in a slow, dejected way, as if field-mice were scarce, and his whole occupation, like the weather, cruelly forlorn.
Through the windy darkness I made my way back to the Manor. By that time I had thought it all over. Conquered by the utter desolation within and without me, I had said to myself, “Life like this is worse than death. I will try one way more; I will go to her, I will take her to my heart, I will beg her to love and trust me, and to accept my tender forgiveness. Perhaps I have been too hard, too taciturn and sullen. She has mistaken my sorrow for coldness, my pride for cruelty and pertinacity. There shall be an end to this. She shall understand the full tenderness of my love, once and for ever.” With these thoughts struggling wildly within me, I hastened home.
Then, as the devil would have it, I saw Baptisto, waiting on the threshold of my den. The moment I appeared he crept up to me, and clutched my arm.
“Senor, senor! where have you been? I have been waiting for you.”
“What is it, man?” I asked, startled by his manner.
He led me towards the house. I walked a few steps, then paused nervously.
“Nothing, senor; but the clergyman is here again, with my lady.”
That was enough. It turned my tenderness into anger, my lethargy into passion. Shaking off the fellow’s touch, I hastened to the house. As I went I saw lights in the drawing-room; and, instead of entering the house door, I ascended the flight of iron steps which leads to the terrace. Then, with the cunning of jealousy, cold enough to subdue the fever of rage, I crept along the terrace till I reached the folding doors of the drawing-room. The doors were closed, the curtains and blinds were drawn, but there was one small space through which I could see into the room.