It was as if before his eyes she were sinking into a fatal stupor, from which all his efforts could not rouse her.
There were moments when he experienced the chilling premonition of a disappointment, the possibility of which he still refused to actually entertain.

He owned to himself that it was a harder task than he had thought to bring back to life one whose veins the frost of despair has chilled.

There were, perhaps, some things too hard even for his love.

It was doubly disheartening for him thus to lose confidence; not only on his own account, but on hers.

Not only had he to ask himself what would become of his life in the event of failure, but what would become of hers?
One day overcome by this sort of discouragement, feeling that he was not equal to the case, that matters were growing worse instead of better, and that he needed help from some source, he asked Madeline if he had not better write to her mother to come to Boston, so that they two could keep house together.
"No," she said in a quick, startled voice, looking up at him in a scared way.
He hastened to reassure her, and say that he had not seriously thought of it, but he noticed that during the rest of the evening she cast furtive glances of apprehension at him, as if suspicious that he had some plot against her.