This returning consciousness had not been, like the dawn stealing in at his window, followed by a burst of sunlight. As the morning enters the stained, foul, dingy places of dissipation, which early in the evening had been the gas-lighted, garish scenes of riot and senseless laughter, and later the fighting ground of all the vile vermin of the night with their uncanny noises--as when, the doors and windows having been at last opened, the light struggles in through stale tobacco-smoke, revealing dimly a discolored, reeking place, whose sights and odors are more in harmony with the sewer than the sweet April sunshine and the violets opening on southern slopes--so when reason and memory, the janitors of the mind, first admitted the light of consciousness, only the obscure outline of miserable feelings and repulsive events were manifest to Haldane's introspection. There was a momentary relief at finding that the horrible dream which had awakened him was only a dream, but while his waking banished the uncouth shapes of the imagination, his sane, will-guided vision saw revealed that from which he shrank with far greater dread. For a few moments, as he stared vacantly around the room, he could realize nothing save a dull, leaden weight of pain. In this dreary obscurity of suffering, distinct causes of trouble and fear began to shape themselves. There was a mingled sense of misfortune and guilt. He had a confused memory of a great disappointment, and he knew from his condition that he had been drinking. He looked at himself--he was dressed. There stood his muddy boots--two foul blots on the beauty and cleanliness of the room. So then he had come, or had been brought, at some hour during the night, to the house of his stern and exacting employer. Haldane dismissed the thought of him with a reckless oath; but his face darkened with anguish as he remembered that this was also the home of Mrs. Arnot, who had been so kind, and, at the present time, the home of Laura Romeyn also. They may have seen, or, at least, must know of, his degradation. He staggered to the ewer, and, with a trembling hand, poured out a little water. Having bathed his hot, feverish face, he again sat down, and tried to recall what had happened. In bitterness of heart he remembered his last interview with Laura, and her repugnance toward both himself and what she regarded as "his disgusting vices," and so disgusting did his evil courses now seem that, for the first time in his life, he thought of himself with loathing.