Starvecrow Farm by Stanley J. Weyman

When the chaise which carried the prisoner to Kendal had left the inn, and the search parties had gone their way under leaders who knew the country, and the long tail of the last shaggy pony had whisked itself out of sight, a dullness exceeding that of November settled down on the inn by the lake. The road in front ran, a dull, unbroken ribbon, along the water-side; and alone and melancholy the chaplain walked up and down, up and down, the last man left. Occasionally Mrs. Gilson appeared at the door and looked this way and that; but her eye was sombre and her manner did not invite approach or confidence. Occasionally, too, Modest Ann's face was pressed against the window of the coffee-room, where she was setting out the long table against evening; but she was disguised in tears and temper, and before Mr. Sutton could identify the phenomenon, or grasp its meaning, she was gone. The frosty promise of the morning had vanished, and in its place leaden clouds dulled sky and lake, and hung heavy and black on the scarred forehead of Bow Fell. Mr. Sutton looked above and below, and this way and that, and, too restless to go in, found no comfort without. He wished that he had gone with the searchers, though he knew not a step of the country. He wished that he had said more for the girl, and stood up for her more firmly, though to do so had been to quarrel with his patron. Above all, he wished that he had never seen her, never given way to the temptation to aspire to her, never started in pursuit of her-last of all, that he had never stooped to spy on her. He was ill content with himself and his work; ill content with the world, his patron, everybody, everything. No man was ever worse content.

For Nemesis in an unexpected form was overtaking, nay even as he walked the road, had overtaken the chaplain. He had come to marry, he remained to love; he had come to enjoy, he remained to suffer. He had come, dazzled by the girl's rank and fortune, that rank and that fortune which he had thought so much above himself, and to which her beauty added so piquant and delicate a charm. And, lo, it was neither her rank, nor her fortune, nor her beauty that, as he walked, beat at his heart and would be heard, would have entrance; but the girl's lonely plight and her disgrace and her trouble. On a sudden, as he went helplessly and aimlessly and unhappily up and down the road, he recognised the truth; he knew what was the matter with him. His eyes filled, his feelings overcame him-and no man was ever more surprised. He had to walk a little way down the road before, out of ken of the horse, he dared to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Nor even then could he refrain from one or two foolish, unmanly gasps.