I may say that his walk had done him no good, and that he had not made up his mind to anything.

He had been building those pernicious castles in the air during more than half the time; not castles in the building of which he could make himself happy, as he had done in the old days, but black castles, with cruel dungeons, into which hardly a ray of light could find its way.

In all these edifices his imagination pictured to him Lily as the wife of Mr Crosbie.

He accepted that as a fact, and then went to work in his misery, making her as wretched as himself, through the misconduct and harshness of her husband.

He tried to think, and to resolve what he would do; but there is no task so hard as that of thinking, when the mind has an objection to the matter brought before it.