Five or six weeks now glided¹ slowly by, without working any change in either the circumstances or the relations of the characters with whom this history has to do. Bergan still shivered in the chill remoteness of position into which he had been flung, partly by his fault and partly by his misfortune. Not only between him and his relatives, but dividing him from the whole reputable outside world, there seemed to be a gulf² fixed³, impassable save to formal courtesies and commonplace usages. Anything warmer, more personal, more exacting⁴, sought in vain for an eligible⁵ crossing place; and, if it leaped the gray chasm⁶, it was only to lose itself among chill, elusive⁷ shapes of mist, on the opposite side.

Thus excluded from the only society for which he cared, Bergan did not, as a weaker character might have done, betake himself for consolation⁸ to the lower circles of vice⁹ and dissipation that would have welcomed him rapturously. He could better afford to stand alone, he thought, than to throw himself into arms whose embrace would soil, and whose seeming support was an insidious¹⁰ undermining. Besides, it was much more in accordance with his character to regard the exclusion¹¹ from which he suffered as a challenge to be answered, an adversary¹² to be overcome, rather than a verdict to be

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