He had no wife to extract bedroom confidences from him, no relations to visit in expansive moments, he trusted nothing to paper or diary, and he did not play golf.

He was a solitary man, of an habitual secretiveness deepened by years of living alone.
His lips moved now, and he spoke aloud.

His voice sounded sharply in the heavy silence.
"A calamity--nothing less.

How did it happen?
Was it grief for his wife ?" His face showed unusual agitation--distress even.

It was well his clients could not see him at that moment.