CHAPTER XVH A BROKEN FETTER

RIC went home with a white, hag- E gard face. He had never thought it possible for a man to suffer as he suffered then. What was he to do? It seemed impossible to go on with life— there was no life apart from Kilmeny. Anguish wrung his soul until his strength went from him and youth and hope turned to gall and bitterness in his heart.

He never afterwards could tell how he lived through the following Sunday or how he taught school as usual on Monday. He found out how much a man may suffer and yet go on living and working. His body seemed to him an automaton that moved and spoke mechanically, while his tortured spirit, pent-up within, endured pain that left its impress on him for ever.

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