months at his very door. He blamed the conventionalities of society that
made it impossible for him to ask her the thousand and one questions he
fain would ask, that refused him permission to ask any until he was
prepared to make that offer which involved the explanation from which he
shrank so much that he would fain know precisely what degree of evil he
must ask her to face before he asked at all. He told himself that he
shrank not so much on account of his own dislike, as on account of the
difficulty in which his offer and explanation must place her if she
loved him; for if she was not bound strongly by the prejudices of her
class, all those she cared for certainly were. On the other hand, if she
did not love him, then, indeed, he had reason to shrink from an
interview that would be the taking away of all his hope. Who would not
wrestle hard with hope and fear before facing such an alternative?
Certainly not a man of Trenholme's stamp.

It is a mistake to suppose that decision and fearlessness are always the
attributes of strength. Angels will hover in the equipoise of indecision
while clowns will make up their minds. Many a fool will rush in to woo
and win a woman, who makes her after-life miserable by inconsiderate
dealings with incongruous circumstance, in that very unbending temper of
mind through which he wins at first. Trenholme did not love the less,
either as lover or brother, because he shrank, as from the galling of an
old wound, when the family trade was touched upon. He was not a weaker
man because he was capable of this long suffering. That nature has the
chance to be the strongest whose sensibilities have the power to draw
nourishment of pain and pleasure from every influence; and if such soul
prove weak by swerving aside because of certain pains, because of
stooping from the upright posture to gain certain pleasures, it still
may not be weaker than the more limited soul who knows not such
temptations. If Trenholme had swerved from the straight path, if he had