Had he not been miserable in mind and body he might have taken more kindly to carpets and china; but as it was, he longed, as a homesick man for home, for bare floors and the unceremoniousness that comes with tin mugs and a scarcity of plates.
For home as it existed for him--the desolate lake and hills, the childish crone and rude hearth--for these he did not long.

It was his home, that place; for into it--into the splashing lake and lonely woods, into the contour of the hills, and into the very logs of which the house was built--he had put as much of himself as can be absorbed by outside things; but just because to return there would be to return to his mind's external habitat, he could not now take comfort in returning.

All the multiform solace it might have yielded him had been blasted by the girl from the hotel, who had visited him in secret.

Before he had seen Sissy again his one constant longing had been to get done with necessary business, financial and medical, and go back to his place, where sorrow and he could dwell at peace together.

He would still go, for he cherished one of those nervous ideas common with sick men, that he could breathe there and nowhere else; but he hated the place that was now rife with memories far more unrestful and galling than memories of the dead can ever be.
He hugged to himself no flattering delusion; in his judgment Sissy had shown herself heartless and cruel; but he did not therefore argue, as a man of politer mind might have done, that the girl he had loved had never existed, that he had loved an idea and, finding it had no resemblance to the reality, he was justified in casting away both, and turning to luxurious disappointment or to a search for some more worthy recipient of the riches of his heart.