But his best gift was his humanity.

Thus Theophil encouraged his evening calls and contrived to prolong them, though the two would often sit almost silent by the hour, their pipes alone making a sort of conversation.
Sometimes the young lions of "The Dawn" would come to supper, as in the old days, as Theophil called a year ago; but supper was a poor thing without Mrs.Talbot popping in and out of the room, though she had seemed comparatively unimportant then,--not to speak of eager little Jenny,--not to think of Isabel.
Yes! the sparkle had gone out of their meetings, which began to have an air of make-believe youth about them.

Theophil's interest was indeed centred in the purlieus of New Zion, but it was entirely retrospective; and though outwardly New Zion was more alive than ever, it seemed to him that activity which once started goes on of itself, and he realised that in his heart he cared nothing for the work itself, but only for the music to which it had once been set in motion.

Incomplete as in one sense it was, in another and more personal sense his life seemed already complete; and while in some moods he would dream of its resounding continuance, in others he would sigh that it might end.
However, for a while he would still go on living with the shadows he loved; and as he sat alone of an evening in that silent house, he would sometimes half fancy that he heard the other occupants moving about or walking overhead.

That was Mrs.Talbot with a creaking basket of clean linen on the stairs, and surely that was the opening and closing of a drawer in Jenny's room.