greatest ease. He was the only son of a widow, he had an excellent
income, he made friends wherever he went, and he had just secured the
most charming rooms close to the Temple. He had plenty of brains, an
exceedingly warm heart, and had lately embraced a religion that
satisfied every instinct of his nature. It was the best of all
possible worlds, and fitted him like his own well-cut clothes. It
consisted of privileges without responsibilities.

And now the crash had come, and all was over.

As the gong sounded for luncheon he turned over and lay on his back,
staring at the ceiling.

It should have been a very attractive face under other circumstances.
Beneath his brown curls, just touched with gold, there looked out a
pair of grey eyes, bright a week ago, now dimmed with tears, and
patched beneath with lines of sorrow. His clean-cut, rather passionate
lips were set now, with down-turned corners, in a line of angry
self-control piteous to see; and his clear skin seemed stained and
dull. He had never dreamt of such misery in all his days.

As he lay now, with lax hands at his side, tightening at times in an
agony of remembrance, he was seeing vision after vision, turning now
and again to the contemplation of a dark future without life or love
or hope. Again he saw Amy, as he had first seen her under the luminous
July evening, jeweled overhead with peeping stars, amber to the
westwards, where the sun had gone down in glory. She was in her
sun-bonnet and print dress, stepping towards him across the
fresh-scented meadow grass lately shorn of its flowers and growth,
looking at him with that curious awed admiration that delighted him