CHAPTER X.
THE LAST TEMPTATION [Greek: 'Ae d' Atae sthenazae te chai 'aztipos sunecha pasas Pollou 'upechpzotheei, phthaneei d' de te pasan ep' aiach Blaptous' anthxopous.] Hom Il.ix.

505.
Time, the great good angel, Time, the merciful healer, assuaged the violence of Eric's grief, which seemed likely to settle down into a sober sadness.

At first his letters to his parents and to Fairholm were almost unintelligible in their fierce abandonment of sorrow; but they grew calmer in time,--and while none of his school-fellows ever ventured in his presence to allude to Vernon, because of the emotion which the slightest mention of him excited, yet he rarely wrote any letters to his relations in which he did not refer to his brother's death, in language which grew at length both manly and resigned.
A month after, in the summer term, he was sitting alone in his study in the afternoon (for he could not summon up spirit enough to play regularly at cricket), writing a long letter to his aunt.

He spoke freely and unreservedly of his past errors,--more freely than he had ever done before,--and expressed not only deep penitence, but even strong hatred of his previous unworthy courses.

"I can hardly even yet realize," he added, "that I am alone here, and that I am writing to my aunt Trevor about the death of my brother, my noble, only brother, Vernon.