To this place--to be near something that was awake and glad--he returned again and again; and more than one of those who left it when the merriment was at its height, felt it a check upon their mirthful mood to see him flitting to and fro like an uneasy ghost.

At last the guests departed, one and all; and then the house was close shut up, and became as dull and silent as the rest.
His wanderings brought him at one time to the city jail.

Instead of hastening from it as a place of ill omen, and one he had cause to shun, he sat down on some steps hard by, and resting his chin upon his hand, gazed upon its rough and frowning walls as though even they became a refuge in his jaded eyes.

He paced it round and round, came back to the same spot, and sat down again.

He did this often, and once, with a hasty movement, crossed to where some men were watching in the prison lodge, and had his foot upon the steps as though determined to accost them.