most bitterly a self-loathing because he knew that his anger
against them was unjust. She did not know, she had no cause to know,
that she had darkened his whole life; but--what a _fool_ she was! What
companionship could that thoughtless fellow give her? How he would drag
her down! And _he_, too, could not know that he had better have killed
his brother than done this thing. But any woman would have done for
Alec; for himself there was only this one--only this one in the whole
world. He judged his brother; any girl with a pretty face and a good
heart would have done for that boisterous fellow--while for himself--"Oh
God," he said, "it is hard."

Thus accusing and excusing these lovers, excusing and again accusing
himself for his rage against them, he descended slowly into the depth of
his trouble--for man, in his weakness, is so made that he can come at
his worst suffering only by degrees. Yet when he had made this descent,
the hope he had cherished for months and years lay utterly overthrown;
it could not have been more dead had it been a hundred years in dying.
He had not known before how dear it was, yet he had known that it was
dearer than all else, except that other hope with which we do not
compare our desires for earthly good because we think it may exist
beside them and grow thereby.

There are times when, to a man, time is not, when the life of years is
gathered into indefinite moments; and after, when outward things claim
again the exhausted mind, he wonders that the day is not further spent.
And Trenholme wondered at the length of that afternoon, when he observed
it again and saw that the sun had not yet sunk low, and as he measured
the shadows that the bright trees cast athwart the moving water, he was
led away to think the thoughts that had been his when he had so lightly
come into those gay autumn bowers. A swallow skimmed the wave with
burnished wing; again he heard the breeze and the rapid current. They
were the same; the movement and music were the same; God was still with
him; was he so base as to withhold the thanksgiving that had been
checked half uttered in his heart by the spring of that couchant sorrow?
_Then_ in the sum of life's blessings he had numbered that hope of his,
and _now_ he had seen the perfect fruition of that hope in joy. It was
not his own,--but was it not much to know that God had made such joy,
had given it to man? Had he in love of God no honest praise to give for
other men's