Darrell bowed his head in assent, and took the letter. George was about
to leave the room.

"Stay," said Darrell, "'tis best to have but one interview--one
conversation on the subject which has been just enforced on me; and the
letter may need a comment or a message to your uncle." He stood
hesitating, with the letter open in his hand; and, fixing his keen eye on
George's pale and powerful countenance, said: "How is it that, with an
experience of mankind which you will pardon me for assuming to be
limited, you yet read so wondrously the complicated human heart?"

"If I really have that gift," said George, "I will answer your question
by another: Is it through experience that we learn to read the human
heart--or is it through sympathy? If it be experience, what becomes of
the Poet? If the Poet be born, not made, is it not because he is born to
sympathise with what he has never experienced?"

"I see! There are born Preachers!"

Darrell reseated himself, and began Alban's letter. He was evidently
moved by the Colonel's account of Lionel's grief, muttering to himself,
"Poor boy!--but he is brave--he is young." When he came to Alban's
forebodings on the effects of dejection upon the stamina of life, he
pressed his hand quickly against his breast as if he had received a
shock! He mused a while before he resumed his task; then he read rapidly
and silently till his face flushed, and he repeated in a hollow tone,
inexpressibly mournful: "Let the young man live, and the old name die
with Guy Darrell. Ay, ay! see how the world sides with Youth! What
matters all else so that Youth have its toy!" Again his eye hurried on