It was a bitter thought, and for a time, as he stood there with his eyes fixed upon the cottage, he felt as if so far as he was concerned the world had come to an end. The happiness which he had seen before him as plainly as if it had been a painted picture--a picture of the fireside in the home that he hoped for--had been blotted out from before his eyes, and in its stead there was a blank. It did not matter how that blank might be filled in, it would never contain the picture that had been torn away from before him when she had of her own free will told him the story of her love. He felt the worst that any man can feel, for the worst comes only when a man cries out to himself: “Too late--too late!” He was tortured by that perpetual question of “Why? Why? Why?” Why had he not come to Cornwall the previous year? Why had he not seen her before she had gone to Bristol and given her promise to the other man? But this was only in the floodtide of his bitterness; after a space it subsided. More reasonable thoughts came to him. Who was he that he should rail against what had been ordered by that Heaven in whose ordering of things he had often expressed his perfect faith? What would he say of any man who should have such rebellious thoughts? Could this be the true love--this that made him rebel against the decree of an all-wise Providence? If it was true it would cause him to think not of his own happiness, but of hers. Had he been thinking all the time of his own happiness? he asked himself. Had she been denied to him on this account? He feared that it was so. He recalled how he had been thinking of her, and he had many pangs of self-reproach when he remembered how in all the pictures of the future that his imagination had drawn he was the central figure. He felt that his aim had been an ignoble one. Selfishness had been the foundation of his love, and therefore he deserved the punishment that had fallen upon him. 'He continued his walk and went past the cottage on which his eyes had lingered. For a mile he strolled, lost in thought along the sandy bay, disturbing the sea birds that were wading about the shallow pools in search of shell fish. The tide was on the ebb and he walked down the little ridges of wet beach until he found himself at the edge of that broad grey sea that sent its whispering ripples to his feet. He had always liked to stand thus in winter as well as summer. Within an hour of dawn the sea seemed very patient. It was waiting for what was to come--for the uprising of the sun to turn its grey into gold. He never failed to learn the lesson of the sea in all its moods; and now he felt strengthened by looking out to the eastern sky, though it was still devoid of light. He would have patience. He would wait and have faith. Light was coming to the world, and happy was the one to whom was given the mission of proclaiming that dawn--the coming of the Light of the World.