t, and did not seek to look into the
future.

But he was not quite free from troubled thoughts at this time. In the
atmosphere in which he lived things wore a new aspect to him. Almost
unconsciously to himself at first, he began to judge of men, and
motives, and actions, by a new rule--or rather, he came back to the old
rule, by which he had measured all things in his youthful days. These
days did not seem so far removed from him now as they used to do, and
sometimes he found himself looking back over the last ten years, with
the clear truthful eyes of eighteen. It was not always a pleasant
retrospect. There were some things covered up by that time, of which
the review could not give unmingled pleasure. These were moments when
he could not meet Graeme's truthful eyes, as with "Don't you remember?"
she recalled his own words, spoken long ago. He knew, though she did
not, how his thoughts of all things had changed since then; and though
the intervening years had made him a man of wealth and note, there came
to him, at such moments, a sense of failure and regret, as though his
manhood had belied the promise of his youth--a strong desire to begin
anew--a longing after a better life than these ten years had witnessed.

But these pleasant days came to an end. Business called Allan, for a
time, to his old home in C, and to his uncongenial life there. It was
not pleasant business. There was a cry, louder than usual, of "hard
times" through the country, and the failure of several houses, in which
he had placed implicit confidence, threatened, not, indeed, to endanger
the safety, but greatly to embarrass the operations of the new firm.
Great losses were sustained, and complicated as their affairs at the
West had become, Allan began to fear that his own presence there would
for some time be necessary. He was surprised and startled at the pain
which the prospect gave him, and before he had time to question himself
as to why it should be so, the reason was made plain to him.

A letter written by his uncle immediately after a partial recovery from
an illness, a return of which, his physicians assured him, must prove
fatal, set the matter before him in its true light. The letter was
brief. Knowing little of the disorder into which recent events had
thrown their affairs, he entreated Allan's immediate return, for his
sake, and for the sake of Lilias, whom it distressed him to think of
leaving till he should see her safe