CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHITEST ASHES.
What is the mood of fate?
Must strong men die illogically?
What does it all mean, anyhow?
About this I am but blind and reasonless.

I wish I knew! The world is more than hollow to me, yet I have a hope, I'll say that.

There was some one very like Jean, one whom I loved and who loved me, thirty years ago.

Will she and I meet some day, I wonder?
And what will she be to me then?
I suppose I have the philosophy and endurance of the average man; but this is, with any doubt, a black world at times, and one in which there is no good.

The breaking of heart-strings mars all music.