Well! what he wished had happened. Suffering had deformed him, time had changed him, to some purpose. He could play the game of life anew, as one freshly come upon the stage. His paradise was closed to him, but he could stand at the gate and be a looker-on at the sphere in which his most sacred interests played their parts; he could respect and uphold, by his withdrawal and secrecy, her, whose vows to him his imagined death had cancelled; he could have his child for a playmate, and sow in her heart those seeds of love, which, if God should ever suffer her to know her father, would, in the fulness of time, bless him with an abundant harvest of happiness. But, though he would not, for the worth of his life, have had things otherwise than they were, yet, as he stood in the room from which the light had departed with his child’s sweet face, the tears rose to his eyes and sobs convulsed him. Oh, it was hard to look back upon his sufferings, and feel that nothing but suffering yet remained; hard and bitter to behold those whom he loved, those whose love would spring to meet him were he to make but one little sign, and to know that he was as dead to them as if the great desolate sea rolled over his body. But here was a noble self-sacrificing heart that could not long mourn its own afflictions. High virtues are always pregnant with high consolations, and a good man’s grief for himself is short because he carries many tender ministers to it in his bosom. There was no triumph now to complete, for his conquest over impulse had been achieved at Southbourne. He drew to the open window at the back, where the air was fragrant with the smell of hay from the meadows beyond, and the cool evening perfumes of flowers hidden amid the shrubbery in the garden, and watched the sun sinking, whilst his thoughts followed it to the distant deep, whose breast it overhung, and on whose lonely surface he had watched it rising and setting with a despair the memory of which filled him with thoughts too deep for tears. CHAPTER XXVIII. DOLLY’S THOUGHTS. Three days passed before Holdsworth saw Nelly again. He then, from his window, beheld her playing on the pavement opposite with the horse and cart he had given her. He called, and she came running over to him gleefully at once. Mrs. Parrot was despatched to request Mrs. Conway’s leave that Nelly might stop to tea with Mr. Hampden, and returned to say that “the little gal might, with the greatest of pleasure.”