Gradually a desire to be out in the spiritual solitude of the night came upon him. He rose from his seat, closed the window, took his hat from the wall, and setting the night-lamp in the open chimney, turned it down to a faint glimmer, and left the room, locking the door behind him. A feeble growl reminded him of the dog, and he delayed a moment to go to the kennel of the animal. The creature knew him, and lazily yawning as he approached, pawed feebly in its nest in the packing case, and wagged its tail. Patting it on the head, and murmuring a kind word or two, he turned from it, and abstractedly wandered out at the gate, and away from the house, with his head bent upon his breast, and his arms behind him. It was the dead of night, and the shadowy streets, wanly lighted by the setting moon, were intensely still. The air was bleak and cold, but the wind, which had been stirring before midnight, had gone down. On that memorable night, as he afterward remembered, he was in such a condition of mental abstraction, that he took no note of the course his steps pursued, nor did he once lift his head to look around him. The strangeness of the moon as he crossed the streets where it was visible, would have roused him to observation, had he chanced to look at it. But he did not, and meeting no person, not even a watchman, and unmindful of the route he took, he wandered mechanically on. What thoughts engaged him, if any, he never could recall. It seemed to him, however, that his mind must have been in blank vacancy, uncrossed by any shadow of mentality. Yet he was remotely sensible of the echoes of his footfalls in the solitary streets and of his passage under the overshadowing bulks of the dark houses. Remotely sensible, too, that there was moonlight, that the air was ghast and cold, and that he was loitering on, alone, with his head sunk upon his breast, and his hands clasped behind him. He knew, too, when he had reached Washington street, though he did not look up, but he felt, as it were, the character of the street, and was dimly aware of the great multitude of signs that covered the buildings. He was conscious of wandering up the deserted thoroughfare for some distance, then of returning, still in the same absent mood, of crossing several moonlit spaces formed by the intersecting streets, of passing the grey, towering spire of the Old South Church, and of turning up School street. In all this route, he did not meet a single person, or once arouse even for a moment from his intense abstraction.