CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER 25Visible text2 paragraphs
Jim had no definite plan as he tramped down the road in the falling darkness. He felt uncertain and miserable as he speculated with regard to Lydia. She could not guess at half the unkind things people must be saying; but she would ask for the bread of sympathy and they would give her a stone. He wished he might carry her away, shielding her and comforting her against the storm. He knew he would willingly give his life to make her happier. Of course she did not care for him. How could she? Who was he-Jim Dodge-to aspire to a girl like Lydia?
The wind had risen again and was driving dark masses of cloud across the sky; in the west a sullen red flared up from behind the hills, touching the lower edges of the vaporous mountains with purple. In a small, clear space above the red hung the silver sickle of the new moon, and near it shone a single star. Lydia was like that star, he told himself-as wonderful, as remote.