CHAPTER XI.
For the first few months after Mercy went away, Stephen seemed to himself to be like an automaton, which had been wound up to go through certain movements for a certain length of time, and could by no possibility stop.
He did not suffer as he had expected.

Sometimes it seemed to him that he did not suffer at all; and he was terrified at this very absence of suffering.

Then again he had hours and days of a dull despair, which was worse than any more active form of suffering.

Now he understood, he thought, how in the olden time men had often withdrawn themselves from the world after some great grief, and had lived long, stagnant lives in deserts and caves.

He had thought it would kill him to lose Mercy out of his life.