into the house.

Sheila was out, it seemed, for the maid had forgotten to light the
lamp. Without pausing to take off his greatcoat, he hung up his hat, ran
nimbly upstairs, and knocked with a light knuckle on his bedroom door.
It was closed, but no answer came. He opened it, shut it, locked it, and
sat down on the bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could
scarcely hear any other sound, as he sat erect and still, like some
night animal, wary of danger, attentively alert. Then he rose from the
bed, threw off his coat, which was clammy with dew, and lit a candle on
the dressing-table.

Its narrow flame lengthened, drooped, brightened, gleamed clearly. He
glanced around him, unusually contented--at the ruddiness of the low
fire, the brass bedstead, the warm red curtains, the soft silveriness
here and there. It seemed as if a heavy and dull dream had withdrawn out
of his mind. He would go again some day, and sit on the little hard seat
beside the crooked tombstone of the friendless old Huguenot. He opened
a drawer, took out his razors, and, faintly whistling, returned to the
table and lit a second candle. And still with this strange heightened
sense of life stirring in his mind, he drew his hand gently over his
chin and looked unto the glass.

For an instant he stood head to foot icily still, without the least
feeling, or thought, or stir--staring into the looking-glass. Then an
inconceivable drumming beat on his ear. A warm surge, like the onset of
a wave, broke in him, flooding neck, face, forehead, even his hands with
colour. He caught himself up and wheeled deliberately and completely
round, his eyes darting to and fro, suddenly to fix themselves in
a prolonged stare, while he took a deep breath, caught back his
self-possession and paused. Then he turned and once more confronted the
changed strange face in the glass.

Without a sound he drew up a chair and sat down, just as he was, frigid
and appalled, at the foot of the bed. To sit like this, with a kind of
incredibly swift torrent of consciousness, bearing echoes and images
like straws and bubbles on its surface, could not be called thinking.
Some stealthy hand had thrust open the sluice of memory. And words,
voices, faces of mockery streamed through without connection, tendency,
or sense. His hands hung between his knees, a deep and settled frown
darkened the features stooping out of the direct rays of the light, and
his eyes wandered like busy and