It was thus he struggled to drive from his mind and from his eyes the phantom of the terrible deed. But that he did not succeed was made evident to himself by the hot clammy drops of sweat which came out upon his brow, by his wakefulness throughout the livelong night, by the carefulness with which his ears watched for the sound of the young man's coming, as though it were necessary that he should be made assured that the murder had in truth not been done. Before that hour had come he found himself to be shaking even in his bed; to be drawing the clothes around him to dispel the icy cold, though the sweat still stood upon his brow; to be hiding his eyes under the bed-clothes in order that he might not see something which seemed to be visible to him through the utmost darkness of the chamber. At any rate he had done nothing! Let his thoughts have been what they might, he had soiled neither his hands nor his conscience. Though everything that he had ever done or ever thought were known, he was free from all actual crime. She had talked of death and thought of murder. He had only echoed her words and her thoughts, meaning nothing,--as a man is bound to do to a woman. Why then could he not sleep? Why should he be hot and shiver with cold by turns? Why should horrid phantoms perplex him in the dark? He was sure he had never meant it. What must be the agony of those who do mean, of those who do execute, if such punishment as this were awarded to one who had done no more than build a horrid castle in the air? Did she sleep;--he wondered,--she who had certainly done more than build a castle in the air; she who had wished and longed, and had a reason for her wishing and her longing?