They had been so much to one another for nearly forty years; he had never wanted anything as a child or youth that she had not tried to get for him.

How strange, how intolerable, that this toy, this boon, was beyond her getting! Her mute sympathy and her deep distress touched him, while, at the same time, they seemed to quench the last spark of hope in him.

Had he counted upon hearing something from her whenever he should break silence which would lighten the veil over the future?
It must have been so, otherwise why this sense of fresh disaster?
'Dear Marie,' he said to her, kissing her brow as she stood beside him, 'you must be as good to me as you can.

I shall probably be a good deal out of London for the present, and my books are a wonderful help.

After all, life is not all summed up in one desire, however strong.