ness to his
ambition, which was not without interest, even to the recluse.

"Poor boy!" said he, mournfully, "how gallantly the ship leaves the
port; how worn and battered it will return!"

When they parted, Walter returned slowly homewards, filled with pity
towards the singular man whom he had seen so strangely overpowered;
and wondering how suddenly his mind had lost its former rancour to the
Student. Yet there mingled even with these kindly feelings, a little
displeasure at the superior tone which Aram had unconsciously adopted
towards him; and to which, from any one, the high spirit of the young
man was not readily willing to submit.

Meanwhile, the Student continued his path along the water side, and
as, with his gliding step and musing air, he roamed onward, it was
impossible to imagine a form more suited to the deep tranquillity of the
scene. Even the wild birds seemed to feel, by a sort of instinct, that
in him there was no cause for fear; and did not stir from the turf that
neighboured, or the spray that overhung, his path.

"So," said he, soliloquizing, but not without casting frequent and
jealous glances round him, and in a murmur so indistinct as would have
been inaudible even to a listener--"so, I was not overheard,--well, I
must cure myself of this habit; our thoughts, like nuns, ought not to go
abroad without a veil. Ay, this tone will not betray me, I will
preserve its tenor, for I can scarcely altogether renounce my sole
confidant--SELF; and thought seems more clear when uttered even thus.
'Tis a fine youth! full of the impulse and daring of his years; I was
never so young at heart. I was--nay, what matters it? Who is answerable
for his nature? Who can say, 'I controlled all the circumstances which
made me what I am?' Madeline,--Heavens! did I bring on myself this
temptation? Have I not fenced it from me throughout all my youth, when
my brain did at moments forsake me, and the veins did bound? And now,
when the yellow hastens on the green of life; now, for the first
time, this emotion--this weakness--and for whom? One I have lived
with--known--beneath whose eyes I have passed through all the fine
gradations, from liking to love, from love to passion? No;--one, whom
I have seen but little; who, it is true, arrested my eye at the first
glance it caught of her two years since, but with whom till within the
last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her voice rings on my ear, her
look dwells on my heart; wh