"Nothing will help me," he returned, in the same muffled voice; but she would not be repulsed. She swept back the dark hair from his forehead and kissed him. Did she not share his sufferings? Could any one sympathize with him as she could? "Oh, if mother were only here," she sighed, feeling her inability to comfort him. "Mother is so sorry for you, she cried about it the other night." "Yes," he answered, "mothers are like that;" and then was silent again. What was there he could say?--he was in no mood for sympathy. The touch of Fern's soft arms, her little attempt at consolation, were torture to him. His idol was gone in another man's possession. He should never see again the dark southern loveliness that had so inthralled his imagination; and the idea was maddening to him. In a little while he rose, but no speech seemed possible to him. A wall of ice seemed to be built up across his path, and he could see no outlet. "I can not stay now," he said, and his voice sounded strange to his own ears. "Will you give my love to my mother, Fern?" "Oh, do not go," she pleaded, and now the tears were running down her face. "Do stay with me, Percy." "Not now; I will come again," he answered, releasing himself impatiently; but as he mounted his horse, some impulse made him look up and wave his hand. And then he rode out into the gloom. It was too early to go home; besides, he did not care to face people. The fog seemed lifting a little. His mare was fresh, and she might take her own road, and follow her own pace--a few miles more or less would not matter to him in this mood. Black care was sitting behind him on the saddle, and had taken the reins from his hands; and a worse gloom than the murky atmosphere was closing round him. She had told him that his life was before him--that he could carve out his own future; but as he looked back on his past life--on the short tale of his four-and-twenty years--his heart was sick within him. What a pitiable part he had played. Was it possible that such a woman as Crystal could ever have loved him? Had not his cowardly desertion of his mother only won her silent contempt? and now it was too late to redeem himself in her eyes. His fate was frowning on him. His position at Belgrave House had long been irksome to him. His grandfather loved him, but not as he loved Erle; and in his heart he was secretly jealous of Erle--if it had been possible he would have supplanted him. Only he himself knew how he had tempted him, and the subterfuges to which he had stooped. He had encouraged Erle's visits to Beulah Place from motives of self-interest, and had been foiled by Erle's engagement to Evelyn Selby.