Hopelessness in youth, unless it be justified by some direst ruin of the future, is wont to touch us either with impatience or with a comforting sense that reaction is at hand; in a man of middle age it moves us with pure pathos.

The sight of Gilbert as he sat thus motionless would have brought tears to kindly eyes.

The past was a burden on his memory, the future lay before him like a long road over which he must wearily toil--the goal, frustration.

To-night he could not forget himself in the thoughts of other men.

It was one of the dread hours, which at intervals came upon him, when the veil was lifted from the face of destiny, and he was bidden gaze himself into despair.