And all this I was leaving. I was going back now to the vast tumult of
the roaring towns, to the lip of mockery, the eye of insincerity, the
hand of hypocrisy, where none may trust a neighbor. And moreover, I
was going back without one look, face to face, into the eyes and the
heart of the woman I had loved, and who, by force of these
extraordinary circumstances had, for a miraculous moment, been thus
set down with me, her lover, in the very surroundings built of
Providence for secrecy and love! Yonder, speeding to her summons, no
doubt hastened, ready to meet her, the man whom she had preferred
above me. And like a beast of burden, driven in the service of these
two, I was plodding on, in the work of leaving paradise and
opportunity, and delivering safe into the hands of another man the
woman whom I loved far more than all else in all the world.