‘Say all you like, sir,’ said Harold as heartily as he could, ‘I am sure it is well meant; and for that at any rate I shall be grateful to you.’

‘You will yet be grateful, I think!’ he answered gravely. ‘When it comes back to you in loneliness and solitude you will, I believe, think it worth being grateful for. I don’t mean that you will be grateful to me, but for the thing itself. I speak out of the wisdom of many years. At your time of life the knowledge cannot come from observation. It may my poor boy, come through pain; and if what I think is correct you will even in due time be grateful to the pain which left such golden residuum.’ He paused, and Harold grew interested. There was something in the old man’s manner which presaged a truth; he, at least, believed