Do away with it in
some manner. Snatch it up and run out with it.
You know that complete mastery of one fixed idea, not a reasonable but an
emotional mastery, a sort of concentrated exaltation. Under its empire
men rush blindly through fire and water and opposing violence, and
nothing can stop them--unless, sometimes, a grain of sand. For his blind
purpose (and clearly the thought of Mrs. Anthony was at the bottom of it)
Mr. Powell had plenty of time. What checked him at the crucial moment
was the familiar, harmless aspect of common things, the steady light, the
open book on the table, the solitude, the peace, the home-like effect of
the place. He held the glass in his hand; all he had to do was to vanish
back beyond the curtains, flee with it noiselessly into the night on
deck, fling it unseen overboard. A minute or less. And then all that
would have happened would have been the wonder at the utter disappearance
of a glass tumbler, a ridiculous riddle in pantry-affairs beyond the wit
of anyone on board to solve. The grain of sand against which Powell
stumbled in his headlong career was a moment of incredulity as to the
truth of his own conviction because it had failed to affect the safe
aspect of familiar things.
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