He agonised over it now.

At times his thoughts were almost more than he could bear.
It came, then, to this, that he had not so much changed towards Hilda as changed towards life.

Whether he had really fundamentally changed in such a way that a break with the old was inevitable he did not know.

Till then Hilda was part of the old, and if he went back to it she naturally took her old place in it.

If he did not--well, there he invariably came to the end of thought.