g in her. He had attributed to her the depth
and intensity of emotion that he found in himself. He had seen in her
not merely a girl of more than common quickness, and perhaps more than
common capacity, but a great nature ready to respond to a great passion
in another. She had much to give to the man she loved; but Stafford
asked even more than was hers to bestow. He had deceived himself, and
the delusion was still upon him. He was conscious only of an utter,
hopeless void. He had removed all to make room for Claudia, and Claudia
refused to fill the vacant place. With all the will in the world she
could not have filled it; but no such thought as this came to console
Stafford. He saw his joy, but was forbidden to reach out his hand and
pluck it. His life lay in the hollow of her hand, to grant or withhold,
and she had closed her grasp upon it.

He did not rest until he reached his hotel, for he felt a longing to be
able to sit down quietly and think it all over. He fancied that when he
reached his own little room, the cloud that now seemed to hang over all
his faculties would disperse, and he would see some plain road before
him. In this he was not altogether disappointed, for it did become clear
to him, as he sat in his chair, that the question he had to solve was
whether he could now find any motive strong enough to keep him in life.
He realized that Claudia's action must be accepted as a final
destruction of his short dream of happiness. He felt that he could not
go back to his old life, much less to his old attitude of mind, as if
nothing had happened--as if he were an unchanged man, save for one
sorrowful memory. The transformation had been too thorough for that. He
had almost hoped that he would find himself the subject of some sudden
revulsion of feeling, some uncontrollable fit of remorse, which would
restore him, beaten and bruised, to his old refuge; but had his hope
been realized, his sense of relief would, he knew, have been mingled
with a measure of contempt for a mind so completely a prey to transient
emotions. His nature was not of that sort, and he could not by a spasm
of penitence nullify the events of the last few months. He must accept
himself as altered by what he had gone through. Was there, then, any
life left for the man he was now?

Undoubtedly, the easiest thing was to bid a quiet good-by to the life he
had so mismanaged. He had never in old days been wedded to life. He had
learnt always to rega