THE STEADFAST HEART
would Mr. Woodhouse be willing to go to save Crane’s good name and to preserve his forfeited honor?
This crisis in Crane’s affairs came at a time when Angus needed sorely something to occupy his mind. With such a problem before him constantly, he had scant leisure, save in the night hours, to give to Lydia Canfield…. This mental absorption did not kill his grief nor destroy the mental agony he experienced—it merely compelled those emotions to lie dormant. Always he was vaguely conscious of it, suppressed, lying in wait just under the surface, to surge upward and to engulf him…. It seemed strange to him that Lydia’s engagement to Malcolm Crane should hurt him so, for he had never expected to win her for himself; always he had known her to be unattainable…. The fact was that his pain was not the pain of loss, but the death of hope. Subconsciously he had hoped and dreamed. Reason may inform that one’s desire is impossible of fulfillment, yet, until the happening of some event which makes it irrevocably impossible, hope will persist. This definite event had occurred. Lydia had given herself to another and hope was dead….
He got up from his chair and went into the bank, where he stopped behind Gene Goff’s desk and said, “If Judge Crane comes in here to-day,
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