One evening he was sitting in his room with a litter of proof-sheets lying idly before him. He felt depressed. It was a new sensation. It puzzled him, annoyed him, made him angry with himself, like a man's first unsuspected attack of the gout. He rose and walked about. His fire had nearly gone out, his lamp had been flaring and the room was filled with its acrid smoke. He could not open the window, for the sleet and rain were beating against the panes. He stopped for a moment watching the water dribble outside down the glass. Then he turned away impatiently, seeking solace from his book-backs and pictures. But they seemed to look back upon him unsympathetically, as if reproaching him for the bare floor, the untidy dresser, and the cheerless hearth. He rekindled his fire, filled a pipe, and sat down to think. Kent was not given to introspection. His external interests in life were too engrossing for him to think deeply or continuously about himself. Such a habit of mind he used vehemently to deprecate as morbid, egotistical. But now this strange depression, this vague sense of loss, compelled him to account for it to his reason. He began in a sober, materialistic way to review his general health (there are philosophers amongst us who refer all moods to the liver, not looking upon it, however, like the ancients, as the seat of the affections!), to question some little disappointments he had had with regard to his great work, and to dwell upon the futility of existence--the suggestion of which he should have been logical enough to see was the result and not the cause of his state of mind. But he was not logical. Few men are when the great facts of inner life are in question; for in the course of logic “none of us would see salvation,” as far as this world's happiness is concerned. Gradually a truth dawned upon him. He missed the ever-ready companionship he had enjoyed for nearly a year. He missed Clytie. He found that for the first time in his life since he was a baby he had been depending for something on a woman. He had never realised until then the strength of that unknown subtle influence, the withdrawal of which left him so weak, so unable to put forth all his powers. At first he thought that it was merely the abrupt interruption of pleasant habits, the sudden jerk out of a well-oiled groove. Telling himself he was satisfied with this solution, he resolutely went back to his writing and began to correct his proof-sheets. But gradually his attention wandered again. These sudden impulses to work against the grain soon spend themselves out and produce greater lassitude than before.