"I feel sure," he said slowly, turning his eyes from the garden, and letting them rest kindly upon the boy's frank face, "I feel sure, Roderick, that no young man who lacks ambition will be of much use to the world. But ambition is a dangerous guide alone. If you are anxious to make the best of your life, my boy, the Lord will open the way to great opportunities. But the time and the way will be plainly shown. If this is a door of greater opportunity, then enter it, and God give you great and large blessing. But if you are leaving with any doubts as to its being the right course, if you fear that there are other obligations you must yet fulfil, then I charge you to examine your heart carefully, lest you fight against God. It is no use trying to do that. One day or other His love will hedge us about. If it cannot draw us into the way it meets us on the Damascus Road and blinds us with its light. But some of us miss the best of life before that happens. Don't lose the way, Lad; your father instructed you well in it."
For days the warning followed Roderick, tormenting him. He dared not examine his motives carefully, lest he find them false. He was out on life's waters, paddling hard for the gleam of gold, and he had no time to stop and consider whither it was leading him. It might vanish while he lingered.
There was another person whose opinion he was anxious to get on this vexed question. He wondered every waking hour what she would think of his going. Perhaps she didn't think about it at all, he speculated miserably. He still continued to waylay her in Willow Lane, as he went to and from home, and one evening he ran upon his poor rival, Afternoon Tea Willie, doing the same sentinel duty.
Roderick had been home for supper and was returning to the office early to do some left over work, when he overtook him slowly walking towards Algonquin.
"Good evening, Mr. Roderick," he said in a melancholy tone. "May I walk into town with you?"
Roderick slackened his stride to suit the young man. He was rather impatient at having to endure his company, but he soon changed his mind, for Alfred was in a confidential mood.
"I might as well go home," he said gloomily. "She's gone."
"Who's gone?" asked Roderick perversely.
"Why, Miss Murray. She slipped away somehow, and I don't know how she did it. But I've waited down here for her for the last time." He choked for a moment, then continued firmly. "She's showed me plainly she doesn't want me, and I'm too proud to force my company upon her."
Roderick did not know what to say; he wanted to laugh, but it was impossible to keep just a little of the fellow-feeling that makes us wondrous kind from creeping into his heart.