Left alone in the silent house, Robert de Ligny relit the lamp.

Serious and even somewhat solemn voices were beginning to speak within him.
Moulded from childhood by the rules of moral responsibility, he now experienced a sensation of painful regret, akin to remorse.

Reflecting that he had caused the death of this man, albeit without intending it or knowing it, he did not feel wholly innocent.

Shreds of his philosophic and religious training came back to him, disturbing his conscience.

The phrases of moralists and preachers, learned at school, which had sunk to the very depths of his memory, suddenly rose in his mind.