alf dreaming, the torpid state was so pervaded with her image,
the sound of her voice, that he wrested himself from it with a conscious
wrench and rose betimes, doubtful if, in the face of this preposterous
persuasion, he could so command his resolution as to continue his stay as
he had planned.

III.

On descending the stairs, Bayne found the fire newly alight in the hall,
burning with that spare, clear brilliancy that the recent removal of
ashes imparts to a wood fire. All the world was still beclouded with
mists, and the windows and doors looked forth on a blank white
nullity--as inexpressive, as enigmatical, as the unwritten page of the
unformulated future itself. The present seemed eliminated; he stood as it
were in the atmosphere of other days. But whither had blown the incense
of that happy time? The lights on the shrine had dwindled to extinction!
What had befallen his strong young hopes, his faith, his inspiration,
that they had exhaled and left the air vapid and listless? He was
conscious that he was no more the man who used to await her coming,
expectant, his eyes on the door. He had now scarcely a pulse in common
with that ardent young identity he remembered as himself--his convictions
of the nobler endowments of human nature; his candid unreserve with his
fellows; his aspirations toward a fair and worthy future; his docile,
sweet, almost humble content with such share of the good things of this
life as had been vouchsafed him; his strength, as "with the strength of
ten," to labor night and day with the impetus of his sanctified impulses;
but, above all, his love, that had consecrated his life, his love for
this woman who he believed--poor young fool!--loved him. How could five
years work such change? World-worn he was and a-weary, casuistic,
cautious, successful in a sort as the logical result of the exercise of
sound commercial principles and more than fair abilities, but caring less
and less for success since its possession had only the inherent values of
gain and was hallowed by no sweet and holy expectation of bestowal. He
could have wept for the metamorphosis! Whatever he might yet become, he
could never be again this self. This bright, full-pulsed identity was
dead--dead for all time! Icarus-like, he had fallen midway in a flight
that under other conditions might have been long and strong and
sustained, and he bemoaned his broken wings.

So much depression of