She, on her part, thought him detestable; she married shortly afterwards, and often spoke to her husband in private of her "escape" from that queer fellow Aldous Raeburn.
Since then he had known plenty of pretty and charming women, both in London and in the country, and had made friends with some of them in his quiet serious way.

But none of them had roused in him even a passing thrill of passion.

He had despised himself for it; had told himself again and again that he was but half a man-- Ah! he had done himself injustice--he had done himself injustice! His heart was light as air.

When at last the sound of a clock striking in the plain roused him with a start, and he sprang up from the heap of stones where he had been sitting in the dusk, he bent down a moment to give a gay caress to his dog, and then trudged off briskly home, whistling under the emerging stars..