Life, he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without love and marriage.

The world of thought was warm and hospitable to him; he moved at ease within its friendly familiar limits; and in the world of personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need.

And now this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible suddenness.

The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for not even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise himself to any flattering vision of the future; and the woman he loved, with that intimate tenacity of affection which is the poetry of kinship, was to be taken from him by this cruel wastefulness of premature death.
Could any man be more alone than he would be?
And then suddenly a consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed.

In the neighbouring room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur of voices.