To his mother perhaps he owed that strain of idealism which gave his
character its significance. In Mrs. Eldon it affected only the inner
life; in Hubert spiritual strivings naturally sought the outlet of
action. That his emancipation should declare itself in some
exaggerated way was quite to be expected: impatience of futilities
and insincerities made common cause with the fiery spirit of youth
and spurred him into reckless pursuit of that abiding rapture which
is the dream and the despair of the earth's purest souls. The pistol
bullet checked his course, happily at the right moment. He had gone
far enough for experience and not too far for self-recovery. The
wise man in looking back upon his endeavours regrets nothing of
which that can be said.

By the side of a passion such as that which had opened Hubert's
intellectual manhood, the mild, progressive attachments sanctioned
by society show so colourless as to suggest illusion. Thinking of
Adela Waltham as he lay recovering from his illness, he found it
difficult to distinguish between the feelings associated with her
name and those which he had owed to other maidens of the same type.
A week or two at Wanley generally resulted in a conviction that he
was in love with Adela; and had Adela been entirely subject to her
mother's influences, had she fallen but a little short of the
innocence and delicacy which were her own, whether for happiness or
the reverse, she would doubtless have been pledged to Hubert long
ere this. The merest accident had in truth prevented it. At home for
Christmas, the young man had made up his mind to speak and claim
her: he postponed doing so till he should have returned from a visit
to a college friend in the same county. His friend had a sister,
five or six years older than Adela, and of a warmer type of beauty,