intolerable apprehension in regard to my future, lest my good
intentions should fail or my self-control not hold out. But the
knowledge that you are acquainted with my resolve, and regard it
with an undeserved sympathy, may suffice to sustain me, and I
should certainly be a base poltroon if I should disappoint you or
her twice."

He paused, drew himself from his father's arms, and glanced almost
solemnly out of the window. "I swear that I will henceforth act as
if she were still alive and watching me."

There was strange intensity in his manner. Mr. Sutherland regarded
him with amazement. He had seen him in every mood natural to a
reckless man, but never in so serious a one, never with a look of
awe or purpose in his face. It gave him quite a new idea of
Frederick.

"Yes," the young man went on, raising his right hand, but not
removing his eyes from the distant prospect on which they were
fixed, "I swear that I will henceforth do nothing to discredit her
memory. Outwardly and inwardly, I will act as though her eye were
still upon me and she could again suffer grief at my failures or
thrill with pleasure at my success."

A portrait of Mrs. Sutherland, painted when Frederick was a lad of
ten, hung within a few feet of him as he spoke. He did not glance
at it, but Mr. Sutherland did, and with a look as if he expected
to behold a responsive light beam from those pathetic features.

"She loved you very dearly," was his slow and earnest comment. "We