The Builders by Ellen Glasgow

The fire was burning low, and after Blackburn had thrown a fresh log on the andirons, he sat down in one of the big leather chairs by the hearth, and watched the flames as they leaped singing up the brick chimney. It was midnight -- the clock in the hall was just striking -- and a few minutes before, Angelica had gone languidly upstairs, after their belated return from a dinner in town. The drive home had been long and dreary, and he could still see the winter landscape, sketched in vivid outlines of black and white, under a pale moon that was riding high in the heavens. Road, fields, and houses, showed as clearly as a pen and ink drawing, and against this stark background his thoughts stood out with an abrupt and startling precision, as if they had detached themselves, one by one, from the naked forms on the horizon.

There was no chance of sleep, for the sense of isolation, which had attacked him like physical pain while he drove home with Angelica, seemed to make his chaotic memories the only living things in a chill and colourless universe.