use, with
Gladys breathless by his side.

'I am afraid I have walked too quickly, Gladys, I am very sorry. I was
anxious to get home, I do not feel very well.'

With these words he hurried through the passage, and was going to his
room, when his father met him and called him into the parlour. He felt
so bewildered that he scarcely knew what his mother said, when she told
him how proud and happy he had made her by his conduct that day.

'All, my dear son, church-people and dissenters were pleased with your
sermon, and the way you managed everything. Your aunt repeated it word
for word to me, and it was just what I like. This is the first comfort I
have felt since--'

Mrs Prothero pressed her son's hand, and her eyes filled with tears.

'Thank you, mother, I am glad,' was all Rowland could say.

'Mind you, Row, my boy, you must write a good sermon for Sunday. You've
got a character to lose now,' said Mr Prothero, giving him a slap on the
back.

'Yes, father. I will go and write it.'

'Not to-night, Rowland,' said Mrs Prothero, anxiously; 'you look pale
and tired. What is the matter?'

'Nothing, mother; but I must think of this sermon, I have only one clear
day. We will talk to-morrow. Good-night, dear mother.'

Rowland stooped to kiss his mother, and she felt that his face was very
cold, and that his hand trembled.

'You are ill, Rowland?'

'No, only tired. I will come and see you again by-and-by.'

Rowland went to his room and bolted himself in. He threw himself on a
chair, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child. He was
seated by a little writing-table near the window, through which the moon
looked down pitifully upon him in his great anguish. Yes, great. Perhaps
the greatest anguish of a life. His arms on the table, his head on his
arms, he thought, in the misery of that moment, that he must die, and he
wished to die. The illusion of a life was destroyed, and how? So rudely,
so cruelly, so heartlessly broken! He could have borne it if there had
been one kind word, only a look of interest or pity; but that pride and
haughtiness were like the stabs of a dagger in his heart.

'Womanly weakness! unmanly folly!' you say, some one who has never felt
keenly and suddenly the pangs of such a passion unrequited. Perhaps so.
But out of our great weakness sometimes grows our strength; out of our
bitterest disappointments our sternest resolution. By-and-by such
weakness will strengthen; such folly wi