He began to hate himself for throwing away the chance Becky had offered for a reconciliation.
He called himself a fool, and all the hard names he could think of.
He wanted to cry with vexation.
Amy chatted happily along, as they walked, for her heart was singing, but Tom's tongue had lost its function.
He did not hear what Amy was saying, and whenever she paused expectantly he could only stammer an awkward assent, which was as often misplaced as otherwise.
He kept drifting to the rear of the schoolhouse, again and again, to sear his eyeballs with the hateful spectacle there.
He could not help it.
And it maddened him to see, as he thought he saw, that Becky Thatcher never once suspected that he was even in the land of the living.
But she did see, nevertheless; and she knew she was winning her fight, too, and was glad to see him suffer as she had suffered.
Amy's happy prattle became intolerable.