attaching to him. As a matter of fact, it was assumed that he was
destined to a much higher estate--the control of his private interests.

In his talk with Angela he made it perfectly plain that he was going to
leave her. He would not make any pretence about this. She ought to know.
He had lost his position; he was not going to Suzanne soon; he wanted
her to leave him, or he would leave her. She should go to Wisconsin or
Europe or anywhere, for the time being, and leave him to fight this
thing out alone. He was not indispensable to her in her condition. There
were nurses she could hire--maternity hospitals where she could stay. He
would be willing to pay for that. He would never live with her any more,
if he could help it--he did not want to. The sight of her in the face of
his longing for Suzanne would be a wretched commentary--a reproach and a
sore shame. No, he would leave her and perhaps, possibly, sometime when
she obtained more real fighting courage, Suzanne might come to him. She
ought to. Angela might die. Yes, brutal as it may seem, he thought this.
She might die, and then--and then---- No thought of the child that might
possibly live, even if she died, held him. He could not understand that,
could not grasp it as yet. It was a mere abstraction.

Eugene took a room in an apartment house in Kingsbridge, where he was
not known for the time being, and where he was not likely to be seen.
Then there was witnessed that dreary spectacle of a man whose life has
apparently come down in a heap, whose notions, emotions, tendencies and
feelings are confused and disappointed by some untoward result. If
Eugene had been ten or fifteen years older, the result might have been
suicide. A shade of difference in temperament might have resulted in
death, murder, anything. As it was, he sat blankly at times among the
ruins of his dreams speculating on what Suzanne was doing, on what
Angela was doing, on what people were saying and thinking, on how he
could gather up the broken pieces of his life and make anything out of
them at all.

The one saving element in it all was his natural desire to work, which,
although it did not manifest itself at first, by degrees later on began
to come back. He must do something, if it was not anything more than to
try to paint again. He could not be running around looking for a
position. There was nothing for him in connection with Blue Sea. He had
to work to support Angela, of whom he was now free,