He had done many things in the world--he had done almost all but one: he had never, never forgotten.

He had tried to put into his existence whatever else might take up room in it, but had failed to make it more than a house of which the mistress was eternally absent.

She was most absent of all on the recurrent December day that his tenacity set apart.

He had no arranged observance of it, but his nerves made it all their own.

They drove him forth without mercy, and the goal of his pilgrimage was far.