The passage of time itself seemed arrested--to-morrow becoming an abstraction, remote and improbable, which could, with impunity, be left out of the count.

With this fantastic state of things, Faircloth had no quarrel.

Though impatient of inaction, as a rule definite and autocratic enough, he really wasn't aware of having any particular use for to-morrow.

Content still held sway.

He was satisfied, profoundly, yet dreamingly, satisfied by an achievement long proposed, long waited for, the door upon which had opened to-day by the merest accident--if anything can justly be called accident, which he inclined to believe it could not.
He had appointed, it should be added, a limit in respect of that achievement, which he forbade himself to pass; and it was his habit very rigidly to obey his own orders, however little disposed he might be to obey those of other people.