He was regardless of it all, even of the heat that, at the same time, scorched him and made him shiver.

He thought of the words that he--he, Alec Trenholme--had lifted up his voice to say, waking the echoes of the snow-muffled silence with proclamation of--He tried not to remember what he had proclaimed, feeling crushed with a new knowledge of his own falseness; and when perforce the thought came upon him of the invisible Actor in the night's drama whose presence, whose action, he had been so strenuously asserting, he was like a man in pain who does not know what remedy to try; and his mood was tense, he sought only relief.

He essayed one thought and another to reason away the cloud that was upon him; and then he tried saying his prayers, which of late had fallen somewhat into disuse.

It was only by way of a try to see if it would do any good; and he did not give himself much time, for he felt that he must go out again to try to bring in the old man.
Before he had put on his fur cap a second time, however, he heard the whistle of the engine he had been expecting now for nearly twenty-four hours.

It came like a sudden trumpet-sound from the outside world to call him back to his ordinary thoughts and deeds.