It was in the room above that HE and I stood glaring at each other on the night of the murder, and before he fell he raised his hand like that, and fixed his eyes on me.

I knew the chase would end there.' 'You have a strong fancy,' said the blind man, with a smile.
'Strengthen yours with blood, and see what it will come to.' He groaned, and rocked himself, and looking up for the first time, said, in a low, hollow voice: 'Eight-and-twenty years! Eight-and-twenty years! He has never changed in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in the least degree.
He has been before me in the dark night, and the broad sunny day; in the twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, the light of fire, and lamp, and candle; and in the deepest gloom.

Always the same! In company, in solitude, on land, on shipboard; sometimes leaving me alone for months, and sometimes always with me.

I have seen him, at sea, come gliding in the dead of night along the bright reflection of the moon in the calm water; and I have seen him, on quays and market-places, with his hand uplifted, towering, the centre of a busy crowd, unconscious of the terrible form that had its silent stand among them.

Fancy! Are you real?
Am I?
Are these iron fetters, riveted on me by the smith's hammer, or are they fancies I can shatter at a blow ?' The blind man listened in silence.
'Fancy! Do I fancy that I killed him?
Do I fancy that as I left the chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from a dark door, who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that he suspected what I had done?
Do I remember that I spoke fairly to him--that I drew nearer--nearer yet--with the hot knife in my sleeve?
Do I fancy how HE died?
Did he stagger back into the angle of the wall into which I had hemmed him, and, bleeding inwardly, stand, not fail, a corpse before me?
Did I see him, for an instant, as I see you now, erect and on his feet--but dead!' The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit down again upon his bedstead; but he took no notice of the gesture.
'It was then I thought, for the first time, of fastening the murder upon him.