e had been looking on the tower which the children of men had
builded, and had recognized his desire to clamber up into it again. He was
not without the perception that a more fiery temperament than his
own--perhaps a nobler one--would have cursed the race that had done him
wrong, and sought to injure it or shun it. Misty recollections of
proud-hearted men who had taken this stand came back to him.

"I suppose I ought to do the same," he muttered to himself humbly; "but
what would be the use when I couldn't keep it up?"

Understanding himself thus well, his purpose became clearer. Like the ant
or the beaver that has seen its fabric destroyed, he must set patiently to
work to reconstruct it. He suspected a poor-spirited element in this sort
of courage; but his instinct forced him within his limitations. By dint of
keeping there and toiling there he felt sure of his ability to get back to
the top of the tower in such a way that no one would think he lacked the
right to be on it.

But he himself would know it. He shrank from that fact with the repugnance
of an honest nature for what is not straightforward; but the matter was
past helping. He should be obliged to play the impostor everywhere and
with every one. He would mingle with men, shake their hands, share their
friendships, eat their bread, and accept their favors--and deceive them
under their very noses. Life would become one long trick, one daily feat
of skill. Any possible success he could win would lack stability, would
lack reality, because there would be neither truth nor fact behind it.

From the argument that he was innocent he got little comfort. He had
forfeited his right to make use of that fact any longer. Had he stayed
where he was he could have shouted it out till they gagged him in the
death-chair. Now he must be dumb on the subject forevermore. In his
disappearance there was an acceptation of guilt which he must remain
powerless to explain away.

Many minutes of dull pain passed in dwelling on that point. He could work
neither back from it nor forward. His mind could only dwell on it with an
aching admission of its justice, while he searched the sky for the dawn.

In spite of the crowing of the cock he saw no sign of it--unless it was
that the mountains on the New York shore detached themselves more
distinctly from the sky of which they had seemed to form a part. On the
Vermont side there was nothing but a heaped-up darkness, night piled on
night,