e from the highroad, and sat
down by a little pool shadowed on one side by alder-bushes still
sprinkled with yellow leaves. It was a calm November day, and he no
sooner saw the pool than he thought its still surface might be a mirror
for him. He wanted to contemplate himself slowly, as he had not dared
to do in the presence of the barber. He sat down on the edge of the
pool, and bent forward to look earnestly at the image of himself.

Was there something wandering and imbecile in his face--something like
what he felt in his mind?

Not now; not when he was examining himself with a look of eager inquiry:
on the contrary, there was an intense purpose in his eyes. But at other
times? Yes, it must be so: in the long hours when he had the vague
aching of an unremembered past within him--when he seemed to sit in dark
loneliness, visited by whispers which died out mockingly as he strained
his ear after them, and by forms that seemed to approach him and float
away as he thrust out his hand to grasp them--in those hours, doubtless,
there must be continual frustration and amazement in his glance. And
more horrible still, when the thick cloud parted for a moment, and, as
he sprang forward with hope, rolled together again, and left him
helpless as before; doubtless, there was then a blank confusion in his
face, as of a man suddenly smitten with blindness.

Could he prove anything? Could he even begin to allege anything, with
the confidence that the links of thought would not break away? Would
any believe that he had ever had a mind filled with rare knowledge, busy
with close thoughts, ready with various speech? It had all slipped away
from him--that laboriously-gathered store. Was it utterly and for ever
gone from him, like the waters from an urn lost in the wide ocean? Or,
was it still within him, imprisoned by some obstruction that might one
day break asunder?

It might be so; he tried to keep his grasp on that hope. For, since the
day when he had first walked feebly from his couch of straw, and had
felt a new darkness within him under the sunlight, his mind had
undergone changes, partly gradual and persistent, partly sudden and
fleeting. As he had recovered his strength of body, he had recovered
his self-command and the energy of his will; he had recovered the memory
of all that part of his life which was closely enwrought with his
emotions; and he had felt more and more constantly and painfully the
uneasy sense