Then followed the long and painful struggle.  But we who are a generation younger, and who enter upon life from school, with the old maxims only half rooted in our minds, feel the whole fabric tottering.  Doubt and uncertainty reign on every side, and we find ourselves now in a state of eager expectation, and now plunged in gloomy apprehension.  Wheresoever we place our foot, the ground gives way beneath us, and if we wish to sit down and rest awhile, the chair is drawn from under us by some invisible hand.  Thus are we whirled to and fro in a struggle for which we were never prepared, and in which numbers of us miserably perish.  Fathers scold and threaten, while mothers weep because we have forsaken the traditions of our childhood.  Bitter words and party names are caught up in the continuous strife, and find their way into family life; the one no longer understands the motives of the other; we stand railing at each other in the pitchy darkness; no distinction is made between sincere conviction and restless love of change.  All strive blindly together, whilst society becomes interwoven with a tissue of hostility, mistrust, falsehood, and hypocrisy.”

Rachel looked at him with open eyes, and at length she exclaimed, “I cannot imagine how you can be content with your present existence, so silent and so reserved, when such a tumult of thought is passing through your brain.”

Jacob Worse stopped, and his face grew calm as he said, “I have a simple remedy, which I have learnt from my mother, and which your father also employed—­and that is, work.  To keep at it from morning to evening; to begin the day with a large packet of foreign letters here on my desk, and to leave off in the evening, tired but content—­content for that day.  That is my remedy—­that keeps the life in me; so far it suffices; higher I cannot attain.”

“I said a short time ago that I envied you your calm and logical mind.  I now regret the tone in which the words were spoken.  I often, somehow or another, I don’t know why, but I often find myself speaking to you somewhat—­” She faltered, and her face became suffused with blushes.

“Somewhat plainly, you mean,” said Worse, smiling.

“May I hope it is because you think me worthy of your confidence?”

She looked at him again, but his eyes were now fixed on the map which hung over her head.

“Well,” said Rachel, “perhaps that is the reason; but what I really envy you is your love of work, or, I should say, not so much the love of work—­for that I have myself—­but your having discovered an employment which keeps you calm.  But you are able to work, that’s where it is,” she added, meditatively.

“My opinion about you, Miss Garman, has always been, that the aimless life a lady in your position is obliged to lead here at home, must sooner or later become unbearable to you.”

“I cannot work,” said she in a crestfallen tone.

“Well, but at least you can try.”