'My dear boy, I have good hopes of saving you. There's not a creature in Stoneborough, or round it, that is not going to petition for you--and at your age--' Leonard shook his head in dejection. 'It has all gone against me,' he said. 'They all say there's no chance. The chaplain says it is of no use unsettling my mind.' 'The chaplain is an old--' began Dr. May, catching himself up only just in time, and asking, 'How do you get on with him!' 'I can hear him read,' said Leonard, with the look that had been thought sullen. 'But you cannot talk to him?' 'Not while he thinks me guilty.' Then, at a sound of warm sympathy from his friend, he added, 'I suppose it is his duty; but I wish he would keep away. I can't stand his aiming at making me confess, and I don't want to be disrespectful.' 'I see, I see. It cannot be otherwise. But how would it be if Wilmot came to you?' 'Would Mr. May?' said Leonard, with a beseeching look. 'Richard? He would with all his heart; but I think you would find more support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilmot's age and experience, and that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him; but it shall be exactly as will be most comforting to you.' 'If Mr. Wilmot would be so good, then' said Leonard, meekly. 'Indeed, I want help to bear it patiently! I don't know how to die; and yet it seemed not near so hard a year ago, when they thought I did not notice, and I heard Ave go away crying, and my mother murmuring, again and again, "Thy will be done!"--the last time I heard her voice. Oh, well that she has not to say it now!' 'Well that her son can say it!' 'I want to be able to say it,' said the boy, fervently; 'but this seems so hard--life is so sweet.' Then, after a minute's thought: 'Dr. May, that morning, when I awoke, and asked you for them--papa and mamma--you knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. Won't you now?' And when those words had been said, and they both stood up again, Leonard added: 'It always seems to mean more and more! But oh, Dr. May! that forgiving--I can't ask any one but you if--' and he paused. 'If you forgive, my poor boy! Nay, are not your very silence and forbearance signs of practical forgiveness? Besides, I have always observed that you have never used one of the epithets that I can't think of him without.' 'Some feelings are too strong for common words of abuse,' said Leonard, almost smiling; 'but I hope I may be helped to put away what is wrong.--Oh, must you go?' 'I fear I must, my dear; I have a patient to see again, on my way back, and one that will be the worse for waiting.' 'Henry has not been able to practise. I want to ask one thing, Dr. May, before you go. Could not you persuade them, since home is poisoned to them, at any rate to go at once? It would be better for my sisters than being here--when--and they would only remember that last Sunday at home.' 'Do you shrink from another meeting with Averil?'