But what if he could not?
What if the thought of her was bound up with his life; and that once torn out by his own free will, the very roots of his heart must come also?
No; he was resolved he would go on; as long as there was life there was hope; as long as Sylvia remained unpledged to any one else, there was a chance for him.

He would remodel his behaviour to her.
He could not be merry and light-hearted like other young men; his nature was not cast in that mould; and the early sorrows that had left him a lonely orphan might have matured, but had not enlivened, his character.

He thought with some bitterness on the power of easy talking about trifles which some of those he had met with at the Corneys' had exhibited.

But then he felt stirring within him a force of enduring love which he believed to be unusual, and which seemed as if it must compel all things to his wish in the end.

A year or so ago he had thought much of his own cleverness and his painfully acquired learning, and he had imagined that these were the qualities which were to gain Sylvia.