Master , if you take my advice , you 'll give up the Lindsay school and go back to your own world as soon as may be . '' CHAPTER XVII . A BROKEN FETTER Eric went home with a white , haggard face . He had never thought it was 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 . Out of that fiery furnace of agony Eric Marshall was to go forth a man who had put boyhood behind him for ever and looked out on life with eyes that saw into it and beyond . On Tuesday afternoon there was a funeral in the district and , according to custom , the school was closed . Eric went again to the old orchard . He had no expectation of seeing Kilmeny there , for he thought she would avoid the spot lest she might meet him . But he could not keep away from it , although the thought of it was an added torment , and he vibrated between a wild wish that he might never see it again , and a sick wonder how he could possibly go away and leave it -- that strange old orchard where he had met and wooed his sweetheart , watching her develop and blossom under his eyes , like some rare flower , until in the space of three short months she had passed from exquisite childhood into still more exquisite womanhood . As he crossed the pasture field before the spruce wood he came upon Neil Gordon , building a longer fence . Neil did not look up as Eric passed , but sullenly went on driving poles . Before this Eric had pitied Neil ; now he was conscious of feeling sympathy with him . Had Neil suffered as he was suffering ? Eric had entered into a new fellowship whereof the passport was pain .
The orchard was very silent and dreamy in the thick , deep tinted sunshine of the September afternoon , a sunshine which seemed to possess the power of extracting the very essence XXXXX all the odours which summer has stored up in wood and field .
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