Noon
Now he saw none except one ; that was into a fiery torture , and whether it was or was not the torture of beneficial sacrifice he could not tell . As he sat there his face grew older with the laboring of his mind over the track of his failures and over the certain difficulties of the future . He sat there all the morning . Noon came , but he did not think of food , although he had eaten little that morning . He lit another cigar and took up the paper again , and read an account of the suicide of a bank defaulter by shooting himself through the brain . He fell to thinking of suicide in his own case , as a means of egress from his own difficulties , but he thought idly , rather as a means of amusement , and not with the slightest seriousness . He had a well-balanced brain naturally , and maintained the balance even in the midst of misfortune .