He took out one or two of the books that stood there in a row--directories and address-books they appeared chiefly to be--and found his name written in each, with here and there a note or a correction, all in his own handwriting.

He took up the half-written letter again and glanced through it once more, but it brought no relief.

He could not even conjecture how the interrupted sentence on the third page ought to end.
Again and again he tried to tear up from his inner consciousness something which he could remember, closing his eyes and sinking his head upon his hands, but nothing except fragments and glimpses of vision rose before him.

It was now a face or a scene to which he could give no name; now a sentence or a thought that owned no context.

There was no frame at all--no unified scheme in which these fragments found cohesion.