The wind roared loudly round the gables, shaking the house in a way that threatened every moment to hurl it to the ground.

The lamp on the table had a green glass reservoir which was half full of oil.

Owen watched this with unconscious fascination.

Every time a gust of wind struck the house the oil in the lamp was agitated and rippled against the glass like the waves of a miniature sea.

Staring abstractedly at the lamp, he thought of the future.
A few years ago the future had seemed a region of wonderful and mysterious possibilities of good, but tonight the thought brought no such illusions, for he knew that the story of the future was to be much the same as the story of the past.
The story of the past would continue to repeat itself for a few years longer.