But then he felt the fetters of his own individual winter heavy on him again, and he could only see what was happening without feeling it.

For that moment he had felt the leap in his blood, but the next he was conscious again of the immense fatigue that for weeks had been growing on him.

The task which he had voluntarily taken on himself had become no lighter with habit, the incessant attendance on his mother and the strain of it got heavier day by day.

For some time now her childlike content in his presence had been clouded and, instead, she was constantly depressed and constantly querulous with him, finding fault with his words and his silences, and in her confused and muffled manner blaming him and affixing sinister motives to his most innocent actions.

But she was still entirely dependent on him, and if he left her for an hour or two, she would wait in an agony of anxiety for his return, and when he came back overwhelmed him with tearful caresses and the exaction of promises not to go away again.