All the sorrows in the world seemed incarnated in that face, all the oppressions that are done under the sun, all the outrages, all the wrongs! They seemed to cry shame upon him, these things; as if the indecision that tore at his vitals were a portion of whatever it was that caused such suffering. He instinctively lifted his hands to his eyes and pressed his knuckles against his eyeballs. “Chris!” he cried hoarsely⁠ ⁠… “Little Chris! my little Chris!”⁠ ⁠… just as if her form were being carried down some receding distance like a lost Eurydice.

She moved up closely to his side then, and touched his clenched hands with her own, not trying to pull them away from his eyes, but just laying her own fingers over them. “What is it, Wolf?” she whispered with vibrating alarm. “What is it?”