the nine o'clock twilight
Perhaps he felt the return to that task through the dusty roads all the more painfully , perhaps something in that quiet shady home had reminded him of the time before he had taken on him the yoke of self-denial . The strongest heart will faint sometimes under the feeling that enemies are bitter , and that friends only know half its sorrows . The most resolute soul will now and then cast back a yearning look in treading the rough mountain-path , away from the greensward and laughing voices of the valley . However it was , in the nine o'clock twilight that evening , when Mr. Tryan had entered his small study and turned the key in the door , he threw himself into the chair before his writing-table , and , heedless of the papers there , leaned his face low on his hand , and moaned heavily . It is apt to be so in this life , I think . While we are coldly discussing a man 's career , sneering at his mistakes , blaming his rashness , and labelling his opinions -- ` he is Evangelical and narrow ' , or ` Latitudinarian and Pantheistic ' or ` Anglican and supercilious ' -- that man , in his solitude , is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one , because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult word , and do the difficult deed . Mr. Tryan showed no such symptoms of weakness on the critical Sunday .