various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and
unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton
sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with tapestry
hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by great good fortune the
lower part of the shutters had been closed, and this concealed him from
the neighbours. Here, then, Markheim drew in a packing case before the
cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It was a long business, for
there were many; and it was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might
be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness
of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his eye he saw the
door--even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged
commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in
truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural
and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were
wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up
the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! How
fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he
sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and
images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ; children
afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-
flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence
of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays,
and the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to
recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the Ten
Commandments in the chancel.

And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet.
A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went over him,
and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stair
slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the
lock clicked, and the door opened.

Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the
dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some
chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But
when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room, looked
at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and then
withdrew again, and the door closed behind