ion to look up, and not to look down. He wrestled with
himself, and fought with all his power against this hopeless passion;
wondered whether he had done his cause irretrievable mischief by
speaking too soon, as well as by speaking amiss; seldom hoped at all,
for he had been refused even with indignation; and never was less able
to withdraw his thoughts from Emily, even for a moment, than when he
felt most strongly that there was no chance for him at all.

Still they went on and on now, his thoughts of her; they gave poignancy
to all his other pain. The place, the arbour where he sat, had become
familiar to him of late. He had become used to wander and pace the
garden at night some time before this accident. Hour after hour, night
after night, he had gone over the matter; he had hardly decided to go
back to her, and implore her to give him a chance of retrieving his
deplored mistake, when she sent him back his ring, and early the next
morning was gone.

That was all his own fault, and but for it he now thought he should not
have been so unobservant of things about him. Could he, but for such
weary nights of sleepless wandering and watching, have let his darling
boy drive those young horses, filling the carriage so full of his
brothers and sisters that there was no room for any beside him whose
hands were strong enough to hold them in? He was not sure. His clearer
thought would not consent to admit that he could have foreseen the
danger, and yet he had been so accustomed to hold things in hand, and
keep them safe and secure, that he could hardly suppose they would not,
but for his own state of mind, have been managed better.

It was midnight now; he had no intention of coming indoors, or taking
any rest, and his thoughts went on and on. When the misfortune came, it
was still his own perturbation of mind, which had worn and fretted him
so that he could not meet it as he might have done. This woman, whom he
loved as it seemed to him man had never loved before, had taken herself
out of his reach, and another man would win her. How could he live out
the rest of his days? What should he do?

It was because that trouble, heaped upon the other, had made it hard to
give his mind to the situation, that he had not forced himself to take
rest, and what sleep he could, instead of wasting his powers in restless
watching, till his overwrought faculties and jaded eyes had led him to
the fearful moment when he had all but killed his