The shadow of a great mourning fell upon him, of a grief too terrible for words, too solemn for tears, too strong to find any expression save in death itself.

He walked heavily, bending his head, his eyes half closed as though in bodily pain, the icy pavement rang like iron under his tread, the frozen air pierced through him, as his sorrow pierced his heart, the gloom of the fast-sinking winter's day deepened as the darkness in his own soul.

He, who was always alone, knew at last what loneliness could mean.

While she had lived she had been with him always, a living, breathing woman, visible to his inner eyes, speaking to his inward hearing, waking in his sleepless love.

He had sought her with restless haste and untiring strength through the length and breadth of the whole world, but yet she had never left him, he had never been separated from her for one moment, never, in the years of his wandering, had he entered the temple of his heart without finding her in its most holy place.