g thus unknown, shall live behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

For a little he had thought there could not be in the world such
suffering as his; how clear now that his peculiar sorrow was strange to
no hour of unfortunate time; an old story, innocence and virtue--God
knew he had no pride in his own virtue--preyed upon by cunning vice. He
read Hamlet again. Oh, what depth of anguish! What a portrayal of grief
and madness! Horace shook with the sobs that nearly choked him. Like the
sleek murderer and his plump queen, the two creatures hatefulest to him
lived their meanly prosperous lives on his bounty. What conscience
flamed so dimly in the Danish prince that he could hesitate before his
opportunity? Long ago, had Horace been in his place, the guilty pair
would have paid in blood for their lust and ambition. Hamlet would not
kill himself because the Almighty had "fixed his canon 'gainst
self-slaughter;" or because in the sleep of death might rise strange
dreams; he would not kill his uncle because he caught him praying; and
he was content with preaching to his mother. Conscience! God! The two
words had not reached his heart or mind once since that awful night. No
scruples of the Lord Hamlet obscured his view or delayed his action.

He had been brought up to a vague respect of religious things. He had
even wondered where his father and mother might now inhabit, as one
might wonder of the sea-drowned where their bodies might be floating;
but no nearer than this had heaven come to him. He had never felt any
special influence of religion in his life. In what circumstances had
Hamlet been brought up, that religious feeling should have so serious an
effect upon him? Doubtless the prince had been a Catholic like his
recent acquaintance the Monsignor. Ah, he had forgotten that interesting
man, who had told him much worth remembrance. In particular his last
words ... what were those last words? The effort to remember gave him
mixed dreams of Hamlet and the Monsignor that night.

In the morning he went off to the pool with the book of Hamlet and the
echo of those important but forgotten words. The lonely water seemed to
welcome him when he emerged from the path through the woods; the
underbrush rustled, living things scurried away into bush and wave, the
weeds on the far bank set up a rustling, a