No; he was resolved he would go on; as long as there was life there was hope; as long as Sylvia remained unpledged to any one else, there was a chance for him.  He would remodel his behaviour to her.  He could not be merry and light-hearted like other young men; his nature was not cast in that mould; and the early sorrows that had left him a lonely orphan might have matured, but had not enlivened, his character.  He thought with some bitterness on the power of easy talking about trifles which some of those he had met with at the Corneys’ had exhibited.  But then he felt stirring within him a force of enduring love which he believed to be unusual, and which seemed as if it must compel all things to his wish in the end.  A year or so ago he had thought much of his own cleverness and his painfully acquired learning, and he had imagined that these were the qualities which were to gain Sylvia.  But now, whether he had tried them and had failed to win even her admiration, or whether some true instinct had told him that a woman’s love may be gained in many ways sooner than by mere learning, he was only angry with himself for his past folly in making himself her school—­nay, her taskmaster.  To-night, though, he would start off on a new tack.  He would not even upbraid her for her conduct the night before; he had shown her his displeasure at the time; but she should see how tender and forgiving he could be.  He would lure her to him rather than find fault with her.  There had perhaps been too much of that already.

When Coulson came back Philip went to his solitary dinner.  In general he was quite alone while eating it; but to-day Alice Rose chose to bear him company.  She watched him with cold severe eye for some time, until he had appeased his languid appetite.  Then she began with the rebuke she had in store for him; a rebuke the motives to which were not entirely revealed even to herself.

’Thou ‘re none so keen after thy food as common,’ she began.  ’Plain victuals goes ill down after feastin’.’

Philip felt the colour mount to his face; he was not in the mood for patiently standing the brunt of the attack which he saw was coming, and yet he had a reverent feeling for woman and for age.  He wished she would leave him alone; but he only said—­’I had nought but a slice o’ cold beef for supper, if you’ll call that feasting.’

’Neither do godly ways savour delicately after the pleasures of the world,’ continued she, unheeding his speech.  ’Thou wert wont to seek the house of the Lord, and I thought well on thee; but of late thou’st changed, and fallen away, and I mun speak what is in my heart towards thee.’

‘Mother,’ said Philip, impatiently (both he and Coulson called Alice ‘mother’ at times), ’I don’t think I am fallen away, and any way I cannot stay now to be—­it’s new year’s Day, and t’ shop is throng.’

But Alice held up her hand.  Her speech was ready, and she must deliver it.