Book Two The Woman - Chapter 26 Of Storm and Tempest and how I Met One Praying in the Dawn

On I went, chin on breast, heedless of all direction--now beneath
the shade of trees, now crossing grassy glades or rolling meadow,
or threading my way through long alleys of hop-vines; on and on,
skirting hedges, by haycocks looming ghostly in the dark, by
rustling cornfields, through wood and coppice, where branches
touched me, as I passed, like ghostly fingers in the dark; on I
went, lost to all things but my own thoughts. And my thoughts
were not of Life nor Death nor the world nor the spaces beyond
the world--but of my Virgil book with the broken cover, and of
him who had looked at it--over her shoulder. And, raising my
hands, I clasped them about my temples, and, leaning against a
tree, stood there a great while. Yet, when the trembling fit had
left me, I went on again, and with every footstep there rose a
voice within me, crying: "Why? Why? Why?"

Why should I, Peter Vibart, hale and well in body, healthy in
mind--why should I fall thus into ague-spasms because of a woman
--of whom I knew nothing, who had come I knew not whence,
accompanied by one whose presence, under such conditions, meant
infamy to any woman; why should I burn thus in a fever if she
chose to meet another while I was abroad? Was she not free to
follow her own devices; had I any claim upon her; by what right
did I seek to compass her goings and comings, or interest myself
in her doings? Why? Why? Why?