"I ?" he replied, and she noticed for the first time that he looked tired and worried beneath his exuberant optimism.

"I am the loneliest man on earth.

The loneliest man on earth is the one who stands between two extremes." As she made no reply, he continued after a moment, "You think, of course, that I stand with one extreme, not in the centre, but you are mistaken.

I am in the middle.

When I try to bring the two millstones together they will grind me to powder." She had never heard him speak despondently before; and while she listened to the sound of his expressive voice, so full, for the hour at least, of discouragement, she felt drawn to him in a new and personal way.