He felt, perchance, that a share of such vigour might have made his own existence more fruitful.
This was Gilbert Grail at the time with which we are now concerned.

His mother believed that she had discovered in him something of a new mood of late, a tendency to quiet cheerfulness, and she attributed it in part to the healthfulness of intercourse with a friend; partly she assigned to it another reason.

But her assumption did not receive much proof from Gilbert's demeanour when left alone in the sitting-room this Sunday night.

Since Thyrza's departure, he had in truth only made pretence of reading, and now that his mother was gone, he let the book fall from his hands.

His countenance was fixed in a supreme sadness, his lips were tightly closed, and at times moved, as if in the suppression of pain.