He sat for hours looking out into the shadows.

A new responsibility, indeed, had come into life.

He was powerless to grapple with it.

The grotesqueness of the situation appalled him.

How could he plan or dream like other men when the measure of the child's existence, as of his own, could be counted by weeks?
For the first time since his emancipation he looked back into the past without a shudder.