He could think clearly, could put his thoughts into the necessary words; but when his will sent what he wished to say along his nerves toward the vocal organs, it encountered that gap, and could not cross it.
What did he wish to say?
What was the message that could not get through, though he was putting his whole soul into it?
At first he would begin again the struggle to speak, as soon as he had recovered from the last effort and failure; then the idea came to him that if he would hoard strength, he might gather enough to force a passage for the words--for he did not realize that the connection was broken, and broken forever.

So, he would wait, at first for several hours, later for several days; and, when he thought himself strong enough or could no longer refrain, he would try to burst the bonds which seemed to be holding him.

With his children, or his wife and children, watching him with agonized faces, he would make a struggle so violent, so resolute, that even that dead body was galvanized into a ghastly distortion of tortured life.

Always in vain; always the same collapse of despair and exhaustion; the chasm between thought and speech could not be bridged.

They brought everything they could think of his possibly wanting; they brought to his room everyone with whom he had ever had any sort of more than casual relations--Torrey, among scores of others.