shattered.

Even this bitter realization he strove to gather into his resignation;
he had grown prematurely wise and learned, and had taught himself to
accept in submission the apparently unjust decree of destiny.

But sometimes when he came home tired and weary at nightfall and laid
his head, full of aching thoughts, on his pillow to rest, capricious
fate released him from his skeptic views of life; the hard lines faded
from around his handsome mouth, and a slow smile, as of old, crept back
there from its exile, for when he was tired or sad, a fair vision
invariably stood beside him and smoothed away the traces of care from
his face. He could feel the velvety touch of her dainty hands, and see
the beauty of her consoling smile whenever he closed his eyes in a weary
doze on the reality of his present life, but when he raised his lids the
spell broke suddenly, and New York and Ottawa were a hopeless distance
of cruel miles apart.

He had never once doubted that Vivian Standish would deliver his parting
message, and the only bitterness of his better life had been her
silence, cold and cruel, after that appeal his heart had made, before
leaving. But now the thought struck him all at once: may be she had
never received this little messenger of his devotion. Could any man so
base as Vivian Standish had proved himself to be, commit, by the merest
chance, an honest or a just action? He doubted it; at least he gave
himself the benefit of the new uncertainty, and resolved to work out
this intricate problem to its bitter end or die in the attempt.

* * * * *