There was another long silence. Reardon's face was that of a man
in blank misery.

'I have been trying,' he said at length, after an attempt to
speak which was checked by a huskiness in his throat, 'to explain
to myself how this state of things has come about. I almost think
I can do so.'

'How?'

'That half-year abroad, and the extraordinary shock of happiness
which followed at once upon it, have disturbed the balance of my
nature. It was adjusted to circumstances of hardship, privation,
struggle. A temperament like mine can't pass through such a
violent change of conditions without being greatly affected; I
have never since been the man I was before I left England. The
stage I had then reached was the result of a slow and elaborate
building up; I could look back and see the processes by which I
had grown from the boy who was a mere bookworm to the man who had
all but succeeded as a novelist. It was a perfectly natural,
sober development. But in the last two years and a half I can
distinguish no order. In living through it, I have imagined from
time to time that my powers were coming to their ripest; but that
was mere delusion. Intellectually, I have fallen back. The
probability is that this wouldn't matter, if only I could live on
in peace of mind; I should recover my equilibrium, and perhaps
once more understand myself. But the due course of things is
troubled by my poverty.'