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usted; as though the daring energy had no more supplies to draw upon; for there he sat, hopelessly gazing at the ground beneath, unable to summon resolution to attempt it. The brief season between day and dark, the flickering moments of half-light passed away, and a night calm and starlit spread over the scene. Except the wild and plaintive cry of an owl from an ivy-clad turret above him, not a sound broke the stillness, and there Gerald sat, stunned and scarce conscious. As darkness closed round him, and he could no longer measure the distance to the ground beneath, the peril of his position became more appalling, and he felt like one who must await the moment of an inevitable and dreadful fate. Already a sense of weariness warned him that at the slightest stir he might lose his balance, and then what a fate--mutilation perhaps, worse than any death! If he could maintain his present position till day broke, it was certain he must be rescued. Solitary as was the spot, some one would surely pass and see him, but then, if overcome by fatigue, sleep should seize him--even now a dreary lassitude swept over him: oftentimes his eyes would close, and fancies flit across him, that boded the approach of slumber! Tortured beyond endurance by this long conflict with his fears, he resolved, come what might, to try his fate, and, with a shrill cry for mercy upon his soul, he dropped from the ledge. When the day broke he was there beneath the window, his forehead bleeding and his ankle broken. He had tried to move, but could not, and he waited calmly what fate might befall him. He was now calm and self-confident. The season of struggle was over; the period of sound thought and reflection had begun. CHAPTER XIX. THE PLAN When one looks back upon the story of his life, he is sure to be struck by the reflection, that its uneventful periods, its seasons of seeming repose, were precisely those which tended most to confirm his character. It is in solitude--in the long watches of a voyage at sea--in those watches more painful still, of a sick-bed, that we make up our account with ourselves, own to our short-comings, and sorrow over our faults. The mental culture that at such seasons we pursue, is equally certain to exercise a powerful influence on us. Out of the busy contest of life--removed, for the moment, from its struggles and ambitions--the soil of our hearts is, as it were, fresh turned, and rapidly matures the new-sown
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