At length, after the studies of his youth were over, and he had returned to his old home for life, there came over the settled and brooding darkness of his soul a warm ray of dawn.  In some way, as naturally as one meets a fresh wind full of vernal odor and life, yet never marks the moment of its first caress, so naturally, so unmarkedly, he renewed a childish acquaintance with Violet Channing, a dweller in the same quiet valley with himself, though for long years the fine threads of circumstance had parted them.

Not a stone, and the frail green moss that clings to it, are more essentially different than were Roger Pierce and Violet Channing.  Without a trace of the Shadow in herself, Violet disbelieved its existence in others.  She had heard a rumor of Roger’s phantom, but thought it some strange delusion, or want of perception, in those who told her,—­being rather softened toward him with pity that he should be so little understood.

In the first days of their acquaintance, it seemed as if the light of the girl’s face would have dispelled forever the darkness of her companion’s Shadow, it was so mild and quiet a shining,—­not the mere outer lustre of beauty, but the deep informing expression of that Spirit which had companioned Sunny heavenward.

With Violet, soothed by the timid sweetness of her manner, aroused by her sudden flashes of mirth and vivid enthusiasm, Roger seemed to forget his hateful companion, or remembered it only to be consoled by her tender eyes that beamed with pity and affection.

Month after month this intimacy went on, brightening daily in Roger’s mind the ideal picture of his new friend, but creating in her only a deeper sympathy and a more devout compassion for his wretched and oppressed life.  But as years instead of months went by, the sole influence no longer rested with the girl, drawing Roger Pierce upward, as she longed and strove to do, into her own sunshine.  Their mutual relation had only lightened his darkness in part, while it had drawn over her the faint twilight of a Shadow like his own.  But as the chief characteristic of this unearthly Thing was that it grew by notice, as some strange Eastern plants live on air, it throve but slowly near to Violet Channing, whose thoughts were bent on curing the heart-evil of Roger Pierce, and were so absorbed in that patient care that they had little chance to turn upon herself; though, when patience almost failed, and, weary with fruitless labor and unanswered yearning, her heart sunk, she was conscious of a vague influence that made the sunbeams fall coldly, and the songs of Summer mournful.

Hour after hour she lavished all the treasure she knew, and much that she knew not consciously, to beguile the darkness from Roger’s brow; or recalled again and again her own deeds and words, to review them with strict judgment, lest they might have set provocation in his path; till at length her loving thoughts grew restless and painful, her face paled, her frame wasted away, and over her deep melancholy eyes the Shadow hung like a black tempest reflected in some clear lake.