There was purpose in it, or I am greatly
mistaken. Mr. Man's eyes would be worth looking into, if one could
find purpose in their brown depths! Moreover, though I am too
notorious a dreamer of dreams to be trusted, I cannot help fancying
he went BACK to something; it was not a mere forward move, not a
sudden determination to find some new duty to do that life might grow
nobler and sweeter, but a return to an old duty grown hateful. That
was what I saw in his face as he stood on the crossing, with the noon
sunshine caught in his tawny hair and beard. Rhoda, Edith, and I
have each made a story about him, and each of us would vouch for the
truth of her particular version. I will not tell mine, but this is
Rhoda's; and while it differs from my own in several important
particulars, it yet bears an astonishing resemblance to it. It is
rather romantic, but if one is to make any sort of story out of the
Solitary it must be a romantic one, for he suggests no other.
'Rhoda began her tale with a thrilling introduction that set us all
laughing (we smile here when still the tears are close at hand;
indeed, we must smile, or we could not live): the prelude being
something about a lonely castle in the heart of the Hartz Mountains,
and a prattling golden-haired babe stretching its arms across a
ruined moat in the direction of its absent father.
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