n.

After dinner he determined to pay another visit to the quicksand--he
would not allow even to himself that he was afraid to go. And so,
about nine o'clock, in full array, he marched to the beach, and
passing over the sands sat on the skirt of the nearer rock. The full
moon was behind him and its light lit up the bay so that its fringe of
foam, the dark outline of the headland, and the stakes of the
salmon-nets were all emphasised. In the brilliant yellow glow the
lights in the windows of Port Crooken and in those of the distant
castle of the laird trembled like stars through the sky. For a long
time he sat and drank in the beauty of the scene, and his soul seemed
to feel a peace that it had not known for many days. All the pettiness
and annoyance and silly fears of the past weeks seemed blotted out,
and a new holy calm took the vacant place. In this sweet and solemn
mood he reviewed his late action calmly, and felt ashamed of himself
for his vanity and for the obstinacy which had followed it. And then
and there he made up his mind that the present would be the last time
he would wear the costume which had estranged him from those whom he
loved, and which had caused him so many hours and days of chagrin,
vexation, and pain.

But almost as soon as he arrived at this conclusion another voice
seemed to speak within him and mockingly to ask him if he should ever
get the chance to wear the suit again--that it was too late--he had
chosen his course and must now abide the issue.

'It is not too late,' came the quick answer of his better self; and
full of the thought, he rose up to go home and divest himself of the
now hateful costume right away. He paused for one look at the
beautiful scene. The light lay pale and mellow, softening every
outline of rock and tree and house-top, and deepening the shadows into
velvety-black, and lighting, as with a pale flame, the incoming tide,
that now crept fringe-like across the flat waste of sand. Then he left
the rock and stepped out for the shore.

But as he did so a frightful spasm of horror shook him, and for an
instant the blood rushing to his head shut out all the light of the
full moon. Once more he saw that fatal image of himself moving beyond
the quicksand from the opposite rock to the shore. The shock was all
the greater for the contrast with the spell of peace which he had just
enjoyed; and, almost paralysed in every sense, he stood and watched
the fatal vision and the wrin