ituation, sympathy with the trials
of one so young and fair and admiration of her great and noble spirit,
all seemed to raise her far above his reach, and, while they imparted
new depth and dignity to his love, to whisper that it was hopeless.

'I will keep my word, as I have pledged it to her,' said Nicholas,
manfully. 'This is no common trust that I have to discharge, and I will
perform the double duty that is imposed upon me most scrupulously and
strictly. My secret feelings deserve no consideration in such a case as
this, and they shall have none.'

Still, there were the secret feelings in existence just the same, and in
secret Nicholas rather encouraged them than otherwise; reasoning (if
he reasoned at all) that there they could do no harm to anybody but
himself, and that if he kept them to himself from a sense of duty, he
had an additional right to entertain himself with them as a reward for
his heroism.

All these thoughts, coupled with what he had seen that morning and the
anticipation of his next visit, rendered him a very dull and abstracted
companion; so much so, indeed, that Tim Linkinwater suspected he must
have made the mistake of a figure somewhere, which was preying upon his
mind, and seriously conjured him, if such were the case, to make a clean
breast and scratch it out, rather than have his whole life embittered by
the tortures of remorse.

But in reply to these considerate representations, and many others both
from Tim and Mr Frank, Nicholas could only be brought to state that
he was never merrier in his life; and so went on all day, and so went
towards home at night, still turning over and over again the same
subjects, thinking over and over again the same things, and arriving
over and over again at the same conclusions.

In this pensive, wayward, and uncertain state, people are apt to lounge
and loiter without knowing why, to read placards on the walls with great
attention and without the smallest idea of one word of their contents,
and to stare most earnestly through shop-windows at things which they
don't see. It was thus that Nicholas found himself poring with the
utmost interest over a large play-bill hanging outside a Minor Theatre
which he had to pass on his way home, and reading a list of the actors
and actresses who had promised to do honour to some approaching benefit,
with as much gravity as if it had been a catalogue of the names of those
ladies and gentlemen who stood highest upon