The present was like the desert of Sahara to him, and the future a perfect cavern of gloom.
He was tired of himself and every one else, and, though he did not know it, his nerves were unstrung, and he could not always control his irritability.
But he did his best, and fought his "foul fiend" gallantly.

"He is a good divine that follows his own instructions," he would say grimly, when he compelled himself to make fresh efforts.

Anything was better than brooding, he thought.

And in the evenings he would resist the temptation to yield to his weariness and to take possession of his easy-chair.
For he knew too well that at such hours he was not master of his thoughts, and that in fancy the empty chair opposite to him would not long be unoccupied.
How often had he pictured Elizabeth there as the companion of his solitude--how often had her bright face, with its changing expression, come between him and his book! And in the gloaming her pleasant voice, with its quick breaks and hesitation, its characteristic abruptness, had sounded in his ears.

Sometimes he would walk to and fro in a perfect agony of impatience and passionate rebellion against his fate.
"I am possessed, but it is with an angel in woman's shape," he would say to himself; "and yet she is no angel either--she is far too human.
And her faults--oh well," with a dreary laugh, "her faults are Elizabethan too." But once, when the bitterness of his pain was too great, he muttered to himself a strange thing.
"It is I who ought to be in his place," he said.