Frank had been down staying at the Drakes' with his wife, and therefore did not see the grateful woman before she started. With this exception, things went on as before. The only change was in the cripple. He had altered greatly. He still worked at his wax-flower making, and studied at his books, but it was no longer with the keen interest with which he had formerly worked. He was no longer cheerful and even gay, but would sit at his work for hours without speaking. He was much thinner than he had been, and his face had the expression of great suffering, which is often to be seen in deformed people. He could no longer swing himself upstairs to his bedroom, but slept in the little room on the ground-floor, which John Holl and his wife had resigned to him. Sarah Holl grieved sadly over the change; she loved the lad more than her own children; for had she not done more for him? Palpably, James was fading. He was not dying of a broken heart, but he was giving up life because he no longer cared about living. He had loved Carry, as an ordinary man could not have loved her. Other men would have their pursuits and their pleasures, and their duties; he had only her. He knew that she was not for him. He never dreamt of her in that way. It was a devotion such as a Parsee might pay to his great god of heat and light. She was as far out of his reach, and yet she lighted and gladdened his life. With her loss all its light had gone out. It never entered his thought to blame her. The fire worshipper would as soon blame the sun-god when a cloud has passed between him and the earth. He cursed her destroyer; cursed him with all the intense bitterness of impotence, for none knew who was this man who had brought ruin to the quiet home in New Street. And so all his life changed to bitterness. Why was he ever born? he asked himself, over and over again; why was he sent into the earth to be a mere weight upon other people? Oh, that he was strong, if only for a little time; if only for long enough to find out and to kill this man who had murdered Carry. He could die then; die quietly and happily; ay, even upon a gallows, with the world jeering at him and cursing him. But he was a cripple, and helpless; he had nothing to do but to die; after that it might be different. He would not be a cripple then; all his trouble would be over. Yes, the sooner he died the better.