Up to this moment there had been in the heart of Lewis very little questioning of fate; he had taken all that came in his way with, on the whole, a cheering composure. The loss of his parents had been made up to him in a wonderful way. The loss of Sir Patrick was so completely natural that there could be no repining in the sorrow, honest sorrow deeply felt, but without any bitterness, with which his young dependent mourned him. All this had been legitimate; he had accepted it as inevitable and necessary. Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon. He had taken his life in the same unquestioning matter-of-fact way, almost unconscious of any deeper necessity for satisfaction in it than that which lay on the surface, the honest discharge of such duties as he knew, the honest enjoyment of such pleasures as were congenial to him. He did not know that he wanted anything more. It was not that Lewis had not heard the murmurings of bitter philosophy in many a tone, he had heard his old patron discourse upon the deceptions of life, he had heard Sir Patrick's friends talking, snarling over the lies and delusions with which, to them, the world was full; but the youth in him had rebelled, had laughed, had attributed all this to the ill-temper of age and disappointment, sometimes pitying, always certain that to him nothing of the kind would ever come. And there had been nothing in his existence to contradict this easy confidence. Nothing had gone amiss with him; there had been no occasion for him to rail at fortune, which had always been so good to him, or to find any delusions in the brightness of his life. It had been without complications, without mystery; nothing in it that was not straightforward, until he came to Murkley; and it seemed to him that the harshest moralist could not have objected to his innocent little artifice, his adoption of a name to which he had indeed a good title, even though it was taken up with intention to deceive. And even the deception had a good reason. It seemed hard to poor Lewis that coming thus innocently, with intention to do well, to right wrong, to atone for injury, he should have been made to suffer. It seemed to him cruel. His imagination did not blame Providence, which was too far-off and too solemn to be made responsible for such matters, but he found a little consolation in recalling to his mind the old snarlings he used to hear, the complaints against fate, whatever that was. Why, why should such a malign chance have fallen on him, whose wish was to be just, to be true to everybody? It seemed to Lewis that he had good reason to complain. To be sure, he did not very well know against whom his complaint could be directed, but he felt it all the same.