Conversation among those who
remained reverted to the picture; and presently all were gone, excepting
only Barren, who had to wait and see his work packed.
Remorse will take strange shapes. His bitter tirade against his environment
and himself was the direct result of this man's recent experiences. He knew
himself for a mean knave in his dealings with an innocent girl and the
thought turned the aspect of all things into gall.
Solitude brought back a measure of peace. The picture was packed and
started to Penzance railway-station, while Barron's tools also went, by
pony-cart, back to his rooms in Newlyn. He was to leave upon the following
morning with Murdoch and others who were taking their work to the
Exhibitions.
Now he looked round the cow-byre before locking it for the last time and
returning the key to Farmer Ford's boy, who waited outside to receive it.
"The chapter is ended," he said to himself. "The chapter which contains the
best thing that ever I did, and, I suppose, the worst, as morals have it.
Yet Art happily rises above those misty abstractions which we call right
and wrong. She resembles Nature herself there. Both demand their
sacrifices. 'The white martyrdom of self-denial, the red martyrdom of
blood--each is a thousand times recorded in the history of painting and
will be a thousand times again."
CHAPTER THREE
THE ACT OF FAITH
So John Barren set forth, well content to believe that he would never again
visit Cornwall, and Joan called at the Penzance post-office on the morning
which followed his departure.
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