ed to Dunstan like a long while; and though he was without any
distinct recognition of the possibility that Marner might be alive, and
might re-enter the cottage at any moment, he felt an undefinable dread
laying hold on him, as he rose to his feet with the bags in his hand.
He would hasten out into the darkness, and then consider what he should
do with the bags. He closed the door behind him immediately, that he
might shut in the stream of light: a few steps would be enough to carry
him beyond betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks and the
latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and he was glad of
it; though it was awkward walking with both hands filled, so that it
was as much as he could do to grasp his whip along with one of the
bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he might take his time. So
he stepped forward into the darkness.

CHAPTER V

When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cottage, Silas Marner was not
more than a hundred yards away from it, plodding along from the village
with a sack thrown round his shoulders as an overcoat, and with a horn
lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease,
free from the presentiment of change. The sense of security more
frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason
it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have
been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given
event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged
as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of
time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent.
A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt
by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though
the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the
older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing
conception of his own death. This influence of habit was necessarily
strong in a man whose life was so monotonous as Marner's--who saw no
new people and heard of no new events to keep alive in him the idea of
the unexpected and the changeful; and it explains simply enough, why
his mind could be at ease, though he had left his house and his
treasure more defenceless than usual. Silas was thinking with double
complacency of his supper: first, because it would be hot and savoury;
and secondly, because it would cost