Perhaps the outcome of solicitude in the case of his two elder sons had so far discouraged him, that, on the first symptoms of instability, he ceased to regard Piers as within his influence.
Piers, this morning, had a terrible sense of loneliness, of abandonment.

The one certainty by which he had lived, his delight in books, his resolve to become erudite, now of a sudden vanished.

He did not know himself; he was in a strange world, and bewildered.

Nay, he was suffering anguish.
Why had Miss Derwent disregarded him at breakfast?
He must have offended her last night.

And that could only be in one way, by neglecting his work to loiter about the drawing-room.