He waked to his feast of memory as consciously as he would have waked to his marriage-morn.

Marriage had had of old but too little to say to the matter: for the girl who was to have been his bride there had been no bridal embrace.

She had died of a malignant fever after the wedding-day had been fixed, and he had lost before fairly tasting it an affection that promised to fill his life to the brim.
Of that benediction, however, it would have been false to say this life could really be emptied: it was still ruled by a pale ghost, still ordered by a sovereign presence.

He had not been a man of numerous passions, and even in all these years no sense had grown stronger with him than the sense of being bereft.

He had needed no priest and no altar to make him for ever widowed.