He strove in vain. The very room, in its light and silence, and the
lurking sentiment of something watching him, became terrible. He could
not endure it. The devils in his heart, grown pusillanimous, cowered
beneath the flashing strokes of his aroused and terrible conscience.
He could not endure it. He must go out. He will walk the streets. It
is not late,--it is but ten o'clock. He will go.
The air of his dream still hung heavily about him. He was in the
street,--he hardly remembered how he had got there, or when; but there
he was, wrapped up from the searching cold, thinking, with a quiet
horror in his mind, of the darkened room he had left behind, and haunted
by the sense that something was groping about there in the darkness,
searching for him. The night was still and cold. The full moon was in
the zenith. Its icy splendor lay on the bare streets, and on the walls
of the dwellings. The lighted oblong squares of curtained windows, here
and there, seemed dim and waxen in the frigid glory.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62