I seemed to have passed an infinity of aeons beyond them.

The one and the other belonged as absolutely to the past as a past year belongs.

The thought of them did not bring with it the tremulously unpleasant sensations that, as a rule, come with the thoughts of a too recent _temps jadis_, but rather as a vein of rose across a gray evening.

I had passed his letter over; had dropped it half-read among the litter of the others.

Then there had seemed to be a haven into whose mouth I was drifting.
Now I should have to pick the letters up again, all of them; set to work desolately to pick up the threads of the past; and work it back into life as one does half-drowned things.