" He was really there. He glanced
about and assured himself of it. He wasn't in the office. He
was in an English cathedral close!
But shortly thereafter he was in an English temperance hotel,
sitting still, almost weeping with the longing to see Morton.
He walked abroad, feeling like an intruder on the lively night
crowd; in a tap-room he drank a glass of English porter and
tried to make himself believe that he was acquainted with the
others in the room, to which theory they gave but little
support. All this while his loneliness shadowed him.
Of that loneliness one could make many books; how it sat down
with him; how he crouched in his chair, be-spelled by it, till
he violently rose and fled, with loneliness for companion in his
flight. He was lonely. He sighed that he was "lonely as fits."
Lonely--the word obsessed him. Doubtless he was a bit mad, as
are all the isolated men who sit in distant lands longing for
the voices of friendship.
Next morning he hastened to take the train for Oxford to get
away from his loneliness, which lolled evilly beside him in
the compartment.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124