We have no wish to interfere impertinently.

Only wait till daylight, and wrap yourself in one of our plaids, as the only possible method of carrying out your own intentions; for dead men can't go to Bangor, whithersoever else they may go." "You really are too kind; but I believe I must accept your offer, under penalty of being called mad;" and Elsley laughed a hollow laugh; for he was by no means sure that he was not mad.

He took the proffered wrapper; lay down; and seemed to sleep.
Wynd and Naylor, congratulating themselves on his better mind, lay down also beneath the other plaid, intending to watch him.

But worn out with fatigue, they were both fast asleep ere ten minutes had passed.
Elsley had determined to keep himself awake at all risks; and he paid a bitter penalty for so doing; for now that the fury had passed away, his brain began to work freely again, and inflicted torture so exquisite, that he looked back with regret on the unreasoning madness of last night, as a less fearful hell than that of thought; of deliberate, acute recollections, suspicions, trains of argument, which he tried to thrust from him, and yet could not.

Who has not known in the still, sleepless hours of night, how dark thoughts will possess the mind with terrors, which seem logical, irrefragable, inevitable?
So it was then with the wretched Elsley; within his mind a whole train of devil's advocates seemed arguing, with triumphant subtlety, the certainty of Lucia's treason; and justifying to him his rage, his hatred, his flight, his desertion of his own children,--if indeed (so far had the devil led him astray) they were his own.