Beyond his position, so hardly struggled for, so recently attained, he had nothing to leave behind him which he should particularly regret. He had been so self-contained, from the very means necessary for attaining that position, had been so circumscribed in the pleasures of his life, that his opportunities for the cultivation even of friendship had been very rare. He should miss the quaint caustic conversation, the earnest hearty liking so undeniably existing, even under its slight veneer of eccentricity, of old Foljambe; he should miss what he used laughingly to call his "dissipation" of attending a few professional and scientific gatherings held in the winter, where the talk was all "shop," dry and uninteresting to the uninitiated, but full of delight to the listeners, and specially to the talkers; he should miss the excitement of the lecture-theatre, where perhaps more than anywhere else he thoroughly enjoyed himself, and where he shone at his very brightest, and--that was all. No! Madeleine! this last and keenest source of enjoyment in his life, this pure spring of freshness and vigour, this revivification of early hopes and boyish dreams, this young girl, the merest acquaintance with whom had softened and purified his heart, had given aim and end to his career, had shown him how dull and heartless, how unloved, unloving, and unlovely had been his byegone time, and had aroused in him such dreams of uncensurable ambition for the future,--she must be given up, must become a "portion and parcel of the dreadful past," and be dead to him for ever! She must be given up! He repeated the words mechanically, and they rang in his ears like a knell. She must be given up! She was given up, even then, if he carried out his intention. He should never see her again, should never see the loving light in those blue eyes--ah, how well he minded him of the time when he first saw it in the earliest days of her convalescence at Kilsyth, and of all the undefined associations which it awakened in him!--should never hear the grateful accents of her soft sweet voice, should never touch her pretty hand again. For all the years of his life, as it appeared to him, he had held his eyes fixed upon the ground, and had raised them at the rustle of an angel's wings, only to see her float far beyond his reach. For all the years of his life he had toiled wearily on through the parching desert; and at length, on meeting the green oasis, where the fresh well sparkled so cheerily, had had the cup shattered from his trembling hand.