gloom of the looking-glass-that, or this?

It simply gazed back with a kind of quizzical pity on its lean
features under the scrutiny of eyes so deep, so meaningful, so
desolate, and yet so indomitably courageous. In the brain behind
them a slow and stolid argument was in progress; the one baffling
reply on the one side to every appeal on the other being still
simply. 'What dreams may come?'

Those eyes surely knew something of dreams, else, why this
violent and stubborn endeavour to keep awake

Lawford did indeed once actually frame the question, 'But who the
devil are you?' And it really seemed the eyes perceptibly widened
or brightened. The mere vexation of his unparalleled position.
Sheila's pathetic incredulity, his old vicar's laborious
kindness, the tiresome network of experience into which he would
be dragged struggling on the morrow, and on the morrow after
that, and after that--the thought of all these things faded for
the moment from his mind, lost if not their significance, at
least their instancy.

He simply sat face to face with the sheer difficulty of living on
at all. He even concluded in a kind of lethargy that if nothing
had occurred, no 'change,' he might still be sitting here, Arthur
Rennet Lawford, in his best visitor's room, deciding between
inscrutable life and just--death. He supposed he was tired out.
His thoughts hadn't even the energy to complete themselves. None
cared but himself and this--this Silence.