Jerome withdrew into his reveries, became taciturn, absorbed himself at length in the study of Dante; Mrs.Otway, resenting this desertion, grew critical, condemnatory, and, as if to atone for her union with a man who stood outside all the creeds, developed her mild orthodoxy into a peculiarly virulent form of Anglican puritanism.

The only thing that kept them together was their common inclination for a retired existence, and their love of the northern moorland.
Looking back upon his marriages, the old man wondered sadly.

Why had he not--he who worshipped the idea of womanhood--sought patiently for his perfect wife?
Somewhere in the world he would have found her, could he but have subdued himself to the high seriousness of the quest.

In a youthful poem, he had sung of Love as "the crown of life," believing it fervently; he believed it now with a fervour more intense, because more spiritual.

That crown he had missed, even as did the multitude of mankind.