The rector shook his head again in some perplexity, and filled himself another glass of port, while Maurice, rising from his seat, sauntered to the window, and looked absently at the peaceful scene before him. The moon, rising slowly over the tree-tops, flooded the landscape with her pale gleam, so that the gazer could see the glimmer of the white marble statues far down in the dewy darkness of the lawn, the sombre woods black against the clear sky, and away in the distance the thin streak of silver, which told of the restless ocean. A salt wind was blowing overland from thence, and, dilating his nostrils, opening his mouth, he inhaled the vivifying breeze in long breaths, while dully in his ears sounded the sullen thunder of the far-away billows rolling backward in sheets of shattered foam. “Oh, Mother Nature! Demeter! Tellus! Isis!” he murmured, half closing his eyes; “tis only from thee I can hope to gain a panacea for this gnawing pain of life. I am weary of the world, tired of this aimless existence, but to thee will I fly to seek solace in thine healing balms.” “Maurice!” “Yes, sir.” It was the rector who spoke, and the sound of his mellow voice roused the young man from his dreaming; therefore, resuming his normal manner, he lighted a cigarette and prepared to listen to the conversation of his old tutor. “Are you still as good a German scholar as you used to be?” asked the rector deliberately. “Not quite. My German, like myself, has grown somewhat rusty.” “Can you translate the word _Selbstschmerz_?” “Self-sickness.” “Yes; that is about as good an English equivalent as can be found. Well, that is what you are suffering from.” “Oh, wise physician,” retorted Roylands, with irony. “I know the cause of the disease myself, but what of the cure?” “You must fall in love.” “No one can fall in love to order.” “Well, you must make the attempt at all events,” said Carriston, with a genial laugh; “it is the only cure for your disease.” “Why do you think so?” “Because it is your egotism makes you miserable. You care for no one but yourself, and are therefore bound to suffer from such selfishness. True happiness lies in self-abnegation, a virtue which all men preach, but few men practise. ‘Every man,’ says Goethe, ‘thinks himself the centre of the universe.’ This is true—particularly true in your case. You have been so much taken up with your own woes and troubles that you have had no time to see those of your fellow-creatures, and such exclusive analysis of one’s inner life leads naturally to self-sickness. You are torturing yourself by yourself; you have destroyed the sense of pleasure, and can therefore see nothing good on God’s earth. You would like to cut the Gordian knot by death, but have neither the courage nor resolution to make away with yourself. Oh, I know the reason of such hesitation. ‘’Tis better to endure the ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of.’