Down, down--into the depths of uttermost despondency, of self-pity and self-contempt! Had it been practicable, he would have fled from the house, leaving its occupants to think of him as they would; even as, ten years ago, he had fled from the shame impending over him at Kingsmill.

A cowardly instinct, this; having once acted upon it gave to his whole life a taint of craven meanness.

Mere bluster, all his talk of mental dignity and uncompromising scorn of superstitions.

A weak and idle man, whose best years were already wasted! He gazed deliberately at himself in the glass, at his red eyelids and unsightly lips.

Darkness was best; perhaps he might forget his shame for an hour or two, ere the dawn renewed it.