could remember anything at all; the same simple furniture, the same
white curtains, the same pictures, the same little hanging shelf,
with books given to him in childhood. He thought of the elder
brother who had died at school, and lay in the little churchyard far
away. His only dark memory, that of the poor boy's death after a
very short illness, before that other blow which made him
fatherless.

The earlier retrospect was one of happiness unbroken; for all
childish sorrows lost themselves in the very present sense of peace
and love enveloping those far-away years. His parents' life, as he
saw it then, as in reflection he saw it now, remained an ideal; he
did not care to hope for himself, or to imagine, any other form of
domestic contentment. As a child, he would have held nothing less
conceivable than a moment's discord between father and mother, and
manhood's meditation did but confirm him in the same view.

The mutual loyalty of kindred hearts and minds--that was the best
life had to give. And Will's thoughts turned once more to Norbert
Franks; he, poor fellow, doubtless now raging against the
faithlessness which had blackened all his sky. In this moment of
softened feeling, of lucid calm, Warburton saw Rosamund's behaviour
in a new light. Perhaps she was not blameworthy at all, but rather
deserving of all praise; for, if she had come to know, beyond doubt,
that she did not love Norbert Franks as she had thought, then to
break the engagement was her simple duty, and the courage with which
she had taken this step must be set to her credit. Naturally, it
would be some time before Franks himself took that view. A third
person, whose vanity was not concerned, might moralise thus--