"They tried everything--everything that human wisdom and kindness could devise to save me from myself, but in vain. All causes for offense were removed, and every possible means taken to ward off the threatened excitement; but when the paroxysms came, they wasted no words, no severity upon me, they simply left me to myself.
"But the punishment that followed was a terrible one. For days and days after one of these outbreaks, sometimes for a week together, Raby would refuse to speak to me or to hold any communication at all.
"Our walks and rides, our pleasant studies, were all broken off, every little office and attention refused, my remarks met by a chilling manner that drove me to silence.
"Left completely to my own society, I wandered aimlessly about the house or sat moping over my books or work in a corner. I never sought to rebel against the rigor of my sentence; it was a just one I knew, and I bore it as patiently as I could. And then all at once, sometimes when I least expected it, when I was most hopeless and forlorn, a hand would be placed on my head in the old caressing manner, and a low 'forgiven, darling,' would bring me back to sunshine and happiness; but, oh, how he suffered. I never knew until afterward that his punishment was even greater than mine.
"I am speaking now of my younger days, but presently there came a time when they treated it less as a fault than a malady; when Raby dreaded the repentance more than the paroxysm, for so poignant was my anguish of remorse that it threatened to prey on my health.
"Then, when they saw how I wept and strove against it, and how the torment of my own undisciplined nature was more than I could bear, then they grew to look upon me as one upon whom some deadly scourge was laid--some moral sickness that they could not understand indeed, but which, out of their great love, they could afford to pity.
"Years rolled on. Raby had passed through his university life with honors; had gained a fellowship, and had taken orders, and accepted a curacy some distance from Sandycliffe.
"It was only a temporary position until the church at Sandycliffe had been restored and was ready for use; the living had been already promised to him, and small as it was, he wished to hold it, at least for the present. Raby was a man singularly devoid of ambition, and though he must have been conscious that his were no common gifts, he always told us that he did not wish a wider sphere until he had tested his powers, and had worked a little in the home vineyard.