He got up and replaced it with an attentive air.

He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing, feeling another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever and for ever a picture burning in his memory.

Yet he appeared to be casually doing a trivial and necessary act.

He did not definitely realise his actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate plan of the table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its exact place as correctly as though it had been photographed.

There were one or two spots of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots from the garden.