It was clouds, and rain, and fitful sunshine all the while.
There were no long seasons of serene delight.
"Why," he said to himself, "seek to prolong this effort to blend into one two lives that seem hopelessly antagonistic.

Better stand as far apart as the antipodes than live in perpetual strife.

If I should go to Irene, and, through concession or entreaty, win her back again, what guarantee would I have for the future?
None, none whatever.

Sooner or later we must be driven asunder by the violence of our ungovernable passions, never to draw again together.

We are apart now, and it is well.