The worst had happened.

All the terror life had to appal the human spirit had been faced, in that moment when the doctor's hand upon his shoulder had told him Jenny was to die.

His eyes had looked on the Medusa-face of life that turns the bravest to stone, and he was no longer vulnerable humanity.
On the battle-field of existence he bore a charmed life, and sometimes as he moved among his fellows he felt a certain sense of the unfairness of his advantage in this respect, and paused to pity those who could still be so eager, so tragically set upon, this little issue.

The virulence of those enemies whom he was already making and who were to multiply as his activities awakened again, seemed particularly pathetic, and he would smile in sad amusement at their quaint little efforts to hurt him.

(No man is so strong for this world's fight as he who has laid up his treasure in heaven; and when the mystic condescends to the common trades of life he is an easy master.) It meant so much to them, so little to him.