It never occurred to him to reflect upon the possible agony she might be suffering, his poor little wood-nymph, all alone.

The fact of his own unhappiness filled his mind to the exclusion of any other thought for the time.

In his dire physical weakness Cecilia Cricklander's gracious beauty seemed to augment, and Halcyone's sylph-like charm to grow of less potent force.
For Love had not done all that he would yet do with John Derringham's soul.
That underneath, if he could have chosen between the two women, he would have hesitated for a second was not the case; only physical weakness, and circumstance and propinquity were working for the one and against the other--and so it would appear was Fate.
Thus, the day the visitors left, Mr.Hanbury-Green among them, the invalid was experiencing a sense of exasperating neglect.

He felt extremely miserable.

Life, and all he held good in it, seemed to be over for him, and his financial position was absolutely desperate--quite beyond any question of marriage it threatened to swamp his actual career.