Was a human soul so small a thing that it could perish at his side and he be none the Wiser?
What was his boasted intellect worth if it could paralyse the human part of him and exhaust the fount of his compassion?
In his widening vision he saw that in the spirit of things humanity is one and indivisible, a single organism held together by a common pulse of life.

To live or to die apart he realised, is beyond the scope of an individual destiny, for in the eye of God each man that lives is the keeper not of his own but of his brother's soul.
The self reproach which moved in his heart impelled him so rapidly upon his way that when he reached the doors he had still an hour to wait before the opera ended.

Remembering that if he were so fortunate to find Connie he must take her home, he went to a livery stable for a carriage, and then coming back, walked nervously up and down upon the frozen pavement.

His mind was divided between the fear that she might leave by another entrance--that he might miss her altogether--and the more horrible dread that in seeing her he should be unable to prevail upon her to come away.

She might, he felt, demand a reason, exact from him the meaning of his unexpected appearance; there was even a hideous possibility that she might fly into a temper.
The wind was bitter and he went into the lobby, where a few men were hurrying out to secure their carriages.