s as if a hand
were laid on the sufferer's shoulder, tenderly touching him and arousing
him to life once more. The voice seems to whisper, 'Come, arise! Awake
from mere self-annihilation in grief; there is something yet to live
for; the world has still some work to do--_for you_. There are paths to
be found for you; there are even, it may be, loves to be loved by you
and for you. Arise and come out into the light of the sun and the light
of the stars again.' The voice does not really say all this or any of
this. If it were to do so, it would be only going over the old sort of
consolation which proved hopeless and only a source of renewed anguish
when it was offered by the ordinary well-meaning friends. But the
peculiar, the timely, the heaven-sent influence breathes all this and
much more than this into a man--and the hand that seems at first to be
laid so gently on his shoulder now takes him, still so gently--oh, ever
so gently, but very firmly by the arm, and leads him out of the room
darkened by despair and into the open air, where the sun shines not with
mocking and gaudy glare, but with tender, soft, and sympathising light,
and the new life has begun, and the healing of the sufferer is a
question of time. It may be that he never quite knows from whom the
sudden peculiarity of influence streamed in so beneficently upon him.
Perhaps the source of inspiration is there just by his side, but he
knows nothing of it. Happy the man who, under such conditions, does know
where to find the holy well from which came forth the waters that cured
his pain, and sent him out into life to be a man among men again.

Poor Hamilton was, as he put it himself, hit very hard when he learned
that Helena Langley absolutely refused him. It was not the slightest
consolation to him to know that she was quite willing that their
friendship should go on unbroken. He was rather glad, on the whole, not
to hear that she had declared herself willing to regard him as a
brother. Those dreadful old phrases only make the refusal ten times
worse. Probably the most wholesome way in which a refusal could be put
to a sensitive young man is the blunt, point-blank declaration that
never, under any circumstances, could there be a thought of the girl's
loving him and having him for her husband. Then a young man who is worth
his salt is thrown back upon his own mettle, and recognises the
conditions under which he has to battle his life out, and if he is
really go