All action, he thought, is the climbing of a precipice, upheld above
infinity by one slender sustaining rope. Call it what we like--will,
faith, ambition, the wish to live--in the end it fails us all. And in
that moment, when we begin to imagine how and when it may fail us, we
hear, across the sea of time, the first phantom tolling of the
funeral bell.
There were times now when he seemed to feel the cold approaching breath
of such a moment. But they were still invariably succeeded by a
passionate recoil of life and energy. By the time he reached the hotel
he was once more plunged in all the preoccupations, the schemes, the
pugnacities of the party leader.
* * * * *
A month later, on an evening toward the end of June, Dr. Roughsedge,
lying reading in the shade of his little garden, saw his wife
approaching. He raised himself with alacrity.
"You've seen her?"
"Yes."
With this monosyllabic answer Mrs. Roughsedge seated herself, and slowly
untied her bonnet-strings.
"My dear, you seem discomposed."
"I hate _men_!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, vehemently.
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
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