It shut gently behind her, and
he was alone. He sat down by the table with its litter of books and
newspapers, and stared dully round the room which her passing had left
more hopeless and ugly than ever.
Life itself would be more _fade_ and ugly now. As well for him that
after to-day he would have no time to sit and brood. It would be all
stern reality soon, enough to cure him of lovesickness.
First the work and risks of a secret printing press in some cellar or
sordid room behind a shop, and later on the inevitable police-raid, a
trial that would be no trial with the condemnation signed before-hand,
and afterwards the _travaux forces_, the long marches, the agonies of
farewell at the Siberian boundary-post--not for him, for his were said,
but for his companions in misery--the miseries of the sick and dying,
the partial starvation, and the horrors of dirt and vermin. There were
sure to be some women too among the "politicals," and he would be
obliged to watch their sufferings.
There would be no imaginary grievances in that life at all events.
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