was in the past. Stephen's was in the future. And loneliness is a
feeling which comes unbidden to a heart.

Stephen felt her loneliness all round. In old days Harold was always
within hail, and companionship of equal age and understanding was
available. But now his very reticence in her own interest, and by
her father's wishes, made for her pain. Harold had put his strongest
restraint on himself, and in his own way suffered a sort of silent
martyrdom. He loved Stephen with every fibre of his being. Day by
day he came toward her with eager step; day by day he left her with a
pang that made his heart ache and seemed to turn the brightness of
the day to gloom. Night by night he tossed for hours thinking,
thinking, wondering if the time would ever come when her kisses would
be his . . . But the tortures and terrors of the night had their
effect on his days. It seemed as if the mere act of thinking, of
longing, gave him ever renewed self-control, so that he was able in
his bearing to carry out the task he had undertaken: to give Stephen
time to choose a mate for herself. Herein lay his weakness--a
weakness coming from his want of knowledge of the world of women.
Had he ever had a love affair, be it never so mild a one, he would
have known that love requires a positive expression. It is not
sufficient to sigh, and wish, and hope, and long, all to oneself.
Stephen felt instinctively that his guarded speech and manner were
due to the coldness--or rather the trusting abated worship--of the
brotherhood to which she had been always accustomed. At the time
when new forces were manifesting and expanding themselves within her;
when her growing instincts, cultivated by the senses and the passions
of young nature, made her aware of other forces, new and old,
expanding themselves outside her; at the time when the heart of a
girl is eager for new impressions and new expansions, and the calls