eft no breath upon the stainless skies.
Through the vast silence of the night he passed along; the very
sound of his footfalls was remote to his muffled sense.

Gradually, as he reached the first corner, he had an uneasy feeling
that a thing--a formless, unimaginable thing--was dogging him.
He had thought of going down to his club-room; but he now shrank
from entering, with this thing near him, the lighted rooms where
his set were busy with cards and billiards, over their liquors
and cigars, and where the heated air was full of their idle faces
and careless chatter, lest some one should bawl out that he was
pale, and ask him what was the matter, and he should answer,
tremblingly, that something was following him, and was near him
then! He must get rid of it first; he must walk quickly, and baffle
its pursuit by turning sharp corners, and plunging into devious
streets and crooked lanes, and so lose it!

It was difficult to reach through memory to the crazy chaos of
his mind on that night, and recall the route he took while haunted
by this feeling; but he afterward remembered that, without any
other purpose than to baffle his imaginary pursuer, he traversed
at a rapid pace a large portion of the moonlit city; always (he
knew not why) avoiding the more populous thoroughfares, and choosing
unfrequented and tortuous byways, but never ridding himself of
that horrible confusion of mind in which the faces of his dead
friend and the pale woman were strangely blended, nor of the fancy
that he was followed. Once, as he passed the hospital where Feval
died, a faint hint seemed to flash and vanish from the clouds of
his lunacy, and almost identify the dogging goblin with the figure
of his dream; but the conception instantly mixed with a disconnected
remembrance that this was Christmas eve, and then slipped from
him, and was lost. He did not pause there, but strode on. But just
there, what had been frightful became hideous. For at once he was
possessed with the conviction that the thing that lurked at a distance
behind him was quickening its movement, and coming up to seize
him. The dreadful fancy stung him like a goad, and, with a start,
he accelerated his flight, horribly conscious that what he feared
was slinking along in the shadow, close to the dark bulks of the
houses, resolutely pursuing, and bent on overtaking him. Faster!
His footfalls rang hollowly and loud on the moonlit pavement, and in
contrast with their rapid thuds