He knew--or he seemed to know--where he should find it; but he
hardly told himself, and thought of the thing under mental protest, as a
man in want of money may think of certain funds that he holds in trust.
In his melancholy meditations the idea of something better than all
this, something that might softly, richly interpose, something that
might reconcile him to the future, something that might make one's
tenure of life deep and zealous instead of harsh and uneven--the idea of
concrete compensation, in a word--shaped itself sooner or later into the
image of Mary Garland.
Very odd, you may say, that at this time of day Rowland should still
be brooding over a plain girl of whom he had had but the lightest of
glimpses two years before; very odd that so deep an impression should
have been made by so lightly-pressed an instrument. We must admit the
oddity and offer simply in explanation that his sentiment apparently
belonged to that species of emotion of which, by the testimony of the
poets, the very name and essence is oddity. One night he slept but
half an hour; he found his thoughts taking a turn which excited him
portentously.
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