"Dear father, I have always known there was a cloud upon your life--but at least you have made others happy--as husband, father, master----" "I have not been a domestic tyrant. That is about the best I can say for myself. I have been tolerably indulgent to the kindest of wives. I have loved my only son. Small merits these in a man whose home-life has been cloudless. But I might have done better, Allan. I might have risen superior to that youthful sorrow. I might have taken my dear Emily closer to my heart, travelled over this varied world with her, shown her all that is strangest and fairest under far-off skies instead of letting her vegetate here. I might have gone into Parliament, put my shoulder to the wheel of progress--helped as other men help, with unselfish toil, struggling on hopefully through the great dismal swamp of mistake and muddle-headedness. Better, far better, any life of laborious endeavour, even if futile in result, than the cultured idlers' paradise--better far for me, since in such a life I should have forgotten the past, and might have been a cheerful companion in the present. I chose to feed my morbid fancies; to live the life of retrospection and regret; and now that the end has come, I begin to understand what a contemptible creature I have been." "Contemptible! My dear father, if every student were so to upbraid himself after a life of plain living and high thinking, such as you have led----" "Plain living and high thinking are of very little good, Allan, if they result in no useful work. Plain living and high thinking may be only a polite synonym for selfish sloth." "Father, I will not hear you depreciate yourself." "My dear son! It is something to have won your love." "And my mother. Is it not something to have made her happy?" "For that I must thank her own sweet disposition. My reproach is that I might have made her happier. I have wronged her by brooding over an old sorrow." "She has not been jealous of the love that came before you belonged to her. She loves and honours you." "Far beyond my merits. Providence has been very good to me, Allan." There was a silence. More books were asked for and brought, languidly opened, languidly closed, and laid aside. Yes, the zest had gone out of them. The languor of excessive weakness can find no beauty even in things most beautiful. CHAPTER V. "CHANCE CANNOT CHANGE MY LOVE, NOR TIME IMPAIR." Suzette endured her lover's absence with a philosophical cheerfulness which somewhat surprised her aunt. "Upon my word, Suzie, I am half inclined to think that you don't care a straw for Allan," Mrs. Mornington exclaimed one day, when her niece came singing across the wintry lawn, crisp under her footsteps after the morning frost. Suzette looked angrier than her aunt had ever seen her look till this moment.