CHAPTER XXII.
Five minutes later he was sitting in his room, with his head bowed within the circle of his arms, on the table--final attitude of grief and despair.
His tears were flowing fast, and now and then a sob broke upon the stillness.

Presently he said: "I knew her when she was a little child and used to climb about my knees; I love her as I love my own, and now--oh, poor thing, poor thing, I cannot bear it!--she's gone and lost her heart to this mangy materializee! Why didn't we see that that might happen?
But how could we?
Nobody could; nobody could ever have dreamed of such a thing.

You couldn't expect a person would fall in love with a wax-work.

And this one doesn't even amount to that." He went on grieving to himself, and now and then giving voice to his lamentations.
"It's done, oh, it's done, and there's no help for it, no undoing the miserable business.

If I had the nerve, I would kill it.