"
He walked away to the window. The momentary irritation passed away from
his face; but it left an expression there which remained--an expression
of pining discontent. Personally, his marriage had altered him for the
worse. His wizen little cheeks were beginning to shrink into hollows,
his frail little figure had already contracted a slight stoop. The
former delicacy of his complexion had gone--the sickly paleness of
it was all that remained. His thin flaxen mustaches were no longer
pragmatically waxed and twisted into a curl: their weak feathery ends
hung meekly pendent over the querulous corners of his mouth. If the ten
or twelve weeks since his marriage had been counted by his locks, they
might have reckoned as ten or twelve years. He stood at the window
mechanically picking leaves from a pot of heath placed in front of it,
and drearily humming the forlorn fragment of a tune.
The prospect from the window overlooked the course of the Nith at a bend
of the river a few miles above Dumfries. Here and there, through wintry
gaps in the wooded bank, broad tracts of the level cultivated valley
met the eye. Boats passed on the river, and carts plodded along the
high-road on their way to Dumfries.
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