They could never more be friends; and yet he found himself in a manner compelled to perform the offices of friendship.

Nor was it easy to preserve anything like the neutral standing which he had designed for himself.

The life of this sometime friend of his hung by so frail a link, he had such utter need of kindness; so what could Gilbert do but console him for the loss of his wife, and endeavour to inspire him with a hopeful spirit about her?
What could he do less than friendship would have done, although his affection for this old friend of his youth had perished for evermore?
The task of consolation was not an easy one.

Once restored to his right mind, with a vivid sense of all that had happened to him before his illness, John Saltram was not to be beguiled into a false security.
The idea that his wife was in dangerous hands pursued him perpetually, and the consciousness of his own impotence to rescue her goaded him to a kind of mental fever.
"To be chained here, Gilbert, lying on this odious bed like a dog, when she needs my help! How am I to bear it ?" "Like a man," the other answered quietly.

"Were you as well as I am this moment, there's nothing you could do that I am not doing.