His mind seemed to have as much control over the passion that raged in his heart as an admonishing apostle of peace has over a mob that is headed toward destruction.

At the moment he felt that the last straw--the one burden more that he could not bear--was to be told to follow what he admitted to be the only clear and rational course.

Turning away from her without a reply, he rushed through the open gate and across the road and the poplar log into the friendly shelter of his mill.
"What he needs is to wear himself out and to settle down into a sort of quiet despair," thought Sarah as she looked after him.

Then lifting her trowel, she returned with a sigh to the sowing of portulaca seeds in her rockery.
In the twilight of the mill, where he was hunted through the door by the scent of flowers, he went over to the shelf of books in a corner, and taking down the volumes one by one, turned their leaves with a trembling and eager hand, as though he were seeking some thought so strong, so steadying, that once having secured it, the rush of his passion would beat in vain against its impregnable barrier.

But the books, like Sarah, treated life in the grand manner and with the fine detachment of philosophy.