Madame Riennes and her visions passed from him like a bad dream.

Thoughtful he remained always, for that was his nature; sometimes sad also, when he thought of Isobel, who seemed to have disappeared quite out of his life.

But as was natural at his age, this mood weakened by degrees.

She was always there in the background, but she ceased to obscure the landscape as she had done before, and was to do in his after life.

Had she been a girl of the common type, attractive only because she was a young and vivacious woman, doubtless the eclipse would have been complete.