During these two or three years the nature of Theophilus underwent alchemic change. From joy in freedom he passed through the stage of regretting his severance from the old absorbing official routine, and emerged restless, eager for aim in life, until he realized himself as a man alone in a desert obsessed by the i***t idea to create a garden around him. He grew, if not morose, at least a lover of solitude. He went off on lonely journeys to queer places, sensitively shrinking from routes ordained for the wealthy. He went to Abo in Finland, wandered, more or less aimlessly, about Bulgaria, with a sense of dismal enjoyment. As he always returned from these travels full of accurately tabulated information, Evelina learned to wave him hopeful adieux, and to welcome him back with a grateful sho
