You are going away to be a great lady, and you'll soon find that you
want nothing so badly in this world as to forget that you ever knew this
place, or me. It will be far better to understand and make up my mind to
it at the very beginning. Perhaps some day it will be different, but in
the meantime I know I am right, and you'll soon be convinced of it too,
and perhaps thank me for it.'

'If that is what you think of me, Walter, it will indeed be better as
you say. Good-bye.'

She scarcely touched his hand or looked at him as she turned away. She
was wounded to the heart; and the poor lad, putting a fearful curb upon
himself, suffered her to leave him. He did not even go down to the door
to see the carriage leave, and in a few minutes the rattle of wheels
across the stony street fell upon his ears like a last farewell. Then,
there being none to witness his weakness, he laid his head down upon the
battered old desk, and wept as he had not wept since his childhood. He
had a proud spirit, and circumstances had made him morbidly sensitive.
He was very young to indulge in a man's hopes and aspirations; but age
is not always determined by years. Already he had dreamed his dreams,
had his visions of a glorious future, in which he should build up a home
for himself. Yet not for himself alone--it could be no home unless light
was given to it by her who had been the day-star of his boyhood. The
very loneliness and bitterness of his experience had caused his heart,
capable of a strong and passionate affection, to centre with greater
tenacity upon the gentle being who had shown to him the lovelier side of
nature and life, and had awakened in him strivings after all that was
highest and best. But this morbid sensitiveness, which is the curse of
every proud spirit, and turns even the sweets of life to ashes in the
mouth, had him in bitter bondage. He lashed himself with it, reminding
himself constantly of his origin and his environment, and magnifying
these into insuperable barriers which would for ever stand blankly in
his way. Although common-sense told him that there was no other course
open to Gladys than to accept the kindness offered her by the lawyer
and his wife, and though in his inmost better heart he did not doubt
her, it pleased his harder mood to regard himself as being despised and
trampled on; there was a certain luxury in the indulgence which afforded
him a melancholy pain. By and by, however, better thoughts came, as