A Candle in the Wind by Mary Imlay Taylor

AS Overton went in and shut the door, Faunce found himself once more in the road, and turned mechanically to go back to the cottage. He had almost lost his mental bearings, and for the moment he was incapable of coherent thought. The march of events had been too swift, the revulsion of feeling too strong.

In his soul, at that instant, there was neither hatred, nor contempt, nor even shame. He was numb. He had passed through a long agony, and had paid -- in his heart's blood -- for his craven act. He was still paying, doubtless he would pay until the day of his death; but a strange apathy had come over him. His emotion had spent itself in his attack upon Overton, and now shame had drowned him so completely that it had submerged even his resistance, and he was only intensely weary.