Caius went home, and put away his horse, and entered his small house.
Everything was changed to him; a knowledge that he had vaguely dreaded
had come, but with a grief that he had never dreamed of. For he had
fancied that if it should turn out that his lady-love and Madame Le
Maitre were one, his would only be the disappointment of having loved a
shadow, a character of his own creating, and that the woman herself he
would not love; but now that was not what had befallen him.
All the place was deserted; not a house had shown a sign of life as he
passed. All the world had gone after the seals. This, no doubt, was the
reason why the two women who had not cared for the hunting had taken
that day for a holiday. Caius stood at his window and looked out on the
sea of ice for a little while. He was alone in the whole locality, but
he would not be less alone when the people returned. They had their
interests, their hopes and fears; he had nothing in common with any of
them; he was alone with his pain, and his pain was just this, that he
was alone. Then he looked out further and further into the world from
which he had come, into the world to which he must go back, and there
also he saw himself to be alone. He could not endure the thought of
sharing the motions of his heart and brain with anyone but the one woman
from whom he was wholly separated.
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