in motion. August's velocity was not usually great, his momentum was
tremendous, and now that he had committed himself to the hands of Jonas
Harrison and set out upon this enterprise, he was determined, in his
quiet way, to go through to the end.

Of course he understood the house, and having left the family in
meeting, he had nothing to do but to scale one of the pillars of the
front-porch. In those Arcadian days upper windows were hardly ever
fastened, except when the house was deserted by all its inmates for
days. Half-way up the post he was seized with a violent trembling. His
position brought to him a confused memory of a text of Scripture: "He
that entereth not by the door ... but climbeth up some other way, the
same is a thief and a robber." Bred under Moravian influence, he
half-believed the text to be supernaturally suggested to him. For a
moment his purpose wavered, but the habit of going through with an
undertaking took the place of his will, and he went on blindly, as Baker
the Nile explorer did, "more like a donkey than like a man." Once on the
upper porch he hesitated again. To break into a man's house in this way
was unlawful. His conscience troubled him. In vain he reasoned that Mrs.
Anderson's despotism was morally wrong, and that this action was right
as an offset to it. He knew that it was not right.

I want to remark here that there are many situations in life in which a
conscience is dreadfully in the way. There are people who go straight
ahead to success--such as it is--with no embarrassments, no fire in the
rear from any scruples. Some of these days I mean to write an essay on
"The Inconvenience of having a Conscience," in which I shall proceed to
show that it costs more in the course of a year or two, than it would to
keep a stableful of fast horses. Many a man could afford to drive
Dexters and Flora Temples who would be ruined by a conscience. But I
must not write the essay here, for I am keeping August out in the night
air and his perplexity all this time.

August Wehle had the habit, I think I have said, of going through with
an enterprise. He had another habit, a very inconvenient habit
doubtless, but a very manly one, of listening for the voice of his
conscience. And I think that this habit would have even yet turned him
back, as he had his hand on the window-sash, had it not been that while
he stood there trying to find out just what was the decision of his
conscience, he heard the voices