'
They shook hands, and Yule quitted the house.
He came out again by Camden Town station. The coffee-stall had
disappeared; the traffic of the great highway was growing
uproarious. Among all the strugglers for existence who rushed
this way and that, Alfred Yule felt himself a man chosen for
fate's heaviest infliction. He never questioned the accuracy of
the stranger's judgment, and he hoped for no mitigation of the
doom it threatened. His life was over--and wasted.
He might as well go home, and take his place meekly by the
fireside. He was beaten. Soon to be a useless old man, a burden
and annoyance to whosoever had pity on him.
It was a curious effect of the imagination that since coming into
the open air again his eyesight seemed to be far worse than
before. He irritated his nerves of vision by incessant tests,
closing first one eye then the other, comparing his view of
nearer objects with the appearance of others more remote,
fancying an occasional pain--which could have had no connection
with his disease. The literary projects which had stirred so
actively in his mind twelve hours ago were become an
insubstantial memory; to the one crushing blow had succeeded a
second, which was fatal.
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