ht back all we were--all that is gone for ever.'

The tenderness of one whom he did not feel bound to uphold like his
brother had produced the outbreak that could not fail to come to so
warm, open, and sensitive a nature, and at such an age. He was bold
and full of fortitude in the front of the ordeal, and solitude pent up
his feelings, but the fatherly sympathy and perfect confidence drew
forth expression, and a vent once opened, the rush of emotion and
anguish long repressed was utterly overpowering. His youthful manhood
struggled hard, but the strangled sobs only shook his frame the more
convulsively, and the tears burnt like drops of fire, as they fell
among the fingers that he spread over his face in the agony of weeping
for his young vigorous life, his blasted hopes, the wretchedness he
caused, the disgrace of his name.

'Don't, don't fight against it,' said Dr. May, affectionately drawing
him to his seat on the bed, as, indeed, the violence of the paroxysm
made him scarcely able to stand. 'Let it have its way; you will be all
the better for it. It ought to be so--it must.'

And in tears himself, the Doctor turned his back, and went as far away
as the cell would permit, turning towards the books that lay on a
narrow ledge that served for a table. 'How long, O Lord, how long?'
were the words that caught his eye in the open Psalms; and, startled as
if at unauthorized prying, he looked up at the dull screened and spiked
window above his head, till he knew by the sounds that the worst of the
uncontrollable passion had spent itself, and then he came back with the
towel dipped in water, and cooled the flushed heated face as a sister
might have done.

'Oh--thank you--I am ashamed,' gasped the still sobbing boy.

'Ashamed! No; I like you the better for it,' said the Doctor,
earnestly. 'There is no need that we should not grieve together in
this great affliction, and say out all that is in our hearts.'

'All!' exclaimed Leonard. 'No--no words can say that! Oh! was it for
such as this that my poor mother made so much of me--and I got through
the fever--and I hoped--and I strove--Why--why should I be cut off--for
a disgrace and a misery to all! and again came the heart-broken sobs,
though less violently.

'Not to those who look within, and honour you, Leonard.'

'Within! Why, how bad I have been, since _this_ is the reckoning! I
deserve it, I know--but--' and his voice again sank in tears.

'Ethel says t