Anthony sat with his face buried in his hands, in an attitude of profound dejection.

He was gaunt and haggard and worn to a shadow, and Freda's gentle, pitying gaze held in its depths nothing but love and tender compassion.
The first rapture of meeting once again had passed.

The exultant joy engendered by a sense of freedom had lasted for several hours.
Anthony had laughed and sung aloud and shouted for joy in the shady alleys of the garden, amid all the blissful sights and sounds of springtide.

He had wandered there with Freda beside him in a sort of trance of happiness, in which all else had been forgotten.

The joy to both had been so keen, so exquisite, that it had sufficed them for the present.
But with the falling of the softened dusk, with the setting of the sun, with the natural and inevitable reaction upon an enfeebled body and sensitive spirit, following upon a severe and protracted strain, Dalaber's spirits had suddenly left him.