farther moat, stood upon a grassy hill—once an outwork—whence the blue channel was visible half way to England.

A knot of soldiers came out to regard him, and his fears magnified their curiosity; he ran down the parapet, to their surprise, and re-entered the town by a roundabout way. "I will take a chamber," he said, "and shun observation."[Pg 83]

[Pg 83]

An old woman, in a starched cap, who talked incessantly, showed him a number of rooms in a great stone building. He chose a garret among the chimney-stacks, and lit a fire, and ordered a newspaper and a bottle of brandy. He sat down to read in loneliness. As he surmised, the murder was printed among the "Faits Divers;" it gave his name and the story of the tragedy. His chair rattled upon the tiles as he read, and the tongs, wherewith he touched the fire, clattered in his nervous fingers.

The place was not more composed than himself; the flame was the noisiest in the world; it crackled and crashed and made horrible shadows on the walls. There were rats under the floor whose gnawings were like human speech, and the old house appeared to settle now and then with a groan as if unwilling to shelter guilt. As he looked down upon the clustering roofs of the town they seemed wonderfully like a crowd of people gazing up at his retreat. All the dormer-windows were so many pitiless eyes, and the chimney-pots were guns and cannon to batter down his eyrie.

When night fell upon the city and sea, his fancies were not less alarming. He could not rid himself of the idea that the dead man was at his side. In vain he called upon his victim to appear, and laughed till the windows shook. It was there, there, always THERE! He did not see it—but it was there! He felt its breath, its eye, its influence. It leaned across his shoulder; it gossiped with the shadows; it laid its hand heavily upon his pocket where lay the unholy gold. Some prints of saints and the Virgin upon the wall troubled him; their faces followed him wherever[Pg 84] he turned; he tore them down at length, and tossed them in the fire, but they blazed with so great flame that he cried out for fear.

THERE

[Pg 84]

The town-bells struck the hours; how far apart were the strokes! They tolled rather than pealed, as if for an execution, and the lamps of some passing carriages made a journey as of torches upon the ceiling.

After nine 

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