And again the picture in the cathedral rose before his mental eyes, as it always did when he tried to realise the presence of the beloved. Oh! for one second in which to feast his bodily eye on that dear, forgotten face, so that what time and guilt had deadened in him might revive and live anew! For a moment the outline of a girl's figure darkened the illuminated window-pane. A corner of the curtain was lifted. Instinctively he stretched out his arms. The curtain dropped quickly, and a moment afterwards the light within was extinguished. He waited, hardly daring to draw a breath, for a sign from the darkened spot. But none came. All was motionless and still. "It is madness to think of it!" he said to himself. "Probably she didn't recognise you. She only saw a man's figure that gave her a fright. Make haste! For the whole house will be roused and turned out to hunt the supposed thief." So he retraced his steps. In turning into the street he was conscious that his blood was flowing more calmly, and his pulses not throbbing so fiercely. Being in her neighbourhood even for a few minutes had soothed him. "Where now?" Anywhere in the world, but not home. At the bare thought of that outstretched figure on the floor, his veins began to pulsate again with violence. Oh, she was a fiend, and he hated her! He took a side path, not knowing where it led. It was divided from the Castle island by stables and carters' huts, and ended in an open field. On the opposite side, he saw the indigo belt of woods that encircled the flat white plains. The woods drew him towards them again like a magnet. There he would hide, in their majestic depths where the peace of winter reigned and slept its mysterious dreamless slumber. He trod the pathless field covered with hills and dales of snow which swept away before him like the billows of a boundless ocean of liquid light. His feet crunched through the frozen crust till he sank to his knees, and then it needed all his powers to step forwards once more. But with strenuous effort he ploughed his way, still taking flight from his own thoughts. There was something almost comforting in this objectless striving. His lungs fought for breath; moisture poured from every pore of his body as he plunged and stumbled on. Here and there the crust was strong enough to bear him, and then he felt as if he had been endowed with wings and floated over the ground, till another crash laid him low, grovelling on his hands and knees.