out eight o'clock they were returning to the city and Bernard felt
his veins throbbing; for he had determined to know his fate before he
reached Viola's home. When midway the bridge he pulled his reins and
the horse stood still. The dark waters of the small river swept on
beneath them. Night had just begun to spread out her sombre wings,
bedecked with silent stars. Just in front of them, as they looked out
upon the center of the river, the river took a bend which brought a
shore directly facing them. A green lawn began from the shore and ran
back to be lost in the shadows of the evening. Amid a group of trees,
there stood a little hut that looked to be the hut of an old widower,
for it appeared neglected, forsaken, sad.

Bernard gazed at this lonesome cottage and said: "Viola, I feel
to-night that all my honors are empty. They feel to me like a load
crushing me down rather than a pedestal raising me up. I am not happy.
I long for the solitude of those trees. That decaying old house calls
eloquently unto something within me. How I would like to enter there
and lay me down to sleep, free from the cares and divested of the
gewgaws of the world."

Viola was startled by these sombre reflections coming from Bernard.
She decided that something must be wrong. She was, by nature,
exceedingly tender of heart, and she turned her pretty eyes in
astonished grief at Bernard, handsome, melancholy, musing.

"Ah, Mr. Belgrave, something terrible is gnawing at your heart for one
so young, so brilliant, so prosperous as you are to talk thus. Make a
confidante of me and let me help to remove the load, if I can."

Bernard was silent and eat gazing out on the quiet flowing waters.
Viola's eyes eagerly scanned his face as if to divine his secret.

Bernard resumed speaking: "I have gone forth into life to win certain
honors and snatch from fame a wreath, and now that I have succeeded,
I behold this evening, as never before, that it is not worthy of the
purpose for which I designed it. My work is all in vain."

"Mr. Belgrave, you must not talk so sadly," said Viola, almost ready
to cry.

Bernard turned and suddenly grasped Viola's hands and said in
passionate tones: "Viola, I love you. I have nothing to offer you
worthy of you. I can find nothing worthy, attain nothing worthy. I
love you to desperation. Will you give yourself to a wretch like me?
Say no! don't throw away your beauty, your love on so common a piece
of clay."

Viola utt