But nothing could kill his soul.

And his soul was his faith--something he understood as faith in God or nature or life--in the reason for his being--in his vision of the future.
How then to spend this last remnant of his life! No one would guess what passed through his lonely soul.

No one would care.

But out of the suffering that now seemed to give him spirit and wisdom and charity there dawned a longing to help, to save.

He would return good for evil.