But it seemed to me--when I saw her face--that in her eyes were agony and despair and hopelessness, and that she was bravely trying to hide them from the world.

It's just another proof, one of thousands, that such unreasonable things do happen." He was beginning to feel a dull and painless sort of calm, the stoicism which came to possess him whenever he was confronted by the inevitable.
He sat down, and with his head bowed over it took one of the limp, little hands that lay in Mary Standish's lap.

The warmth had gone out of it.

It was cold and lifeless.

He caressed it gently and held it between his brown, muscular hands, staring at it, and yet seeing nothing in particular.