Suddenly, feeling conscious of the heinousness of the crime he was meditating, and knowing that he was in an unnatural feverish condition, he paused abruptly in his hurried tramp, stood a few moments utterly motionless, then, dropping on his knees, he made a vow that he would take twenty-four hours to consider the deed, and, if it were done, it should not be done rashly. “Hear me, O Heaven!” Springing up, he cried; “Heaven! Heaven!—There is no Heaven! Vow!—to whom did I vow? There is no God!” Muttering a faint laugh, he said, after a moment: “I vowed to myself; and the vow shall be kept. Not all the theories and philosophies of Germany shall cheat me out of it.” It seemed like the last struggle of his soul to assert itself. Almost staggering with exhaustion, he fell upon the bed and slept. A gentle breeze from the far past blew around him in his native land. He saw the white cliff at whose base the sea-foam threw up its glittering spray with a ceaseless strain of music. He saw the green meadows, where the quiet, meek-eyed cattle found a pasture, stretching away to the green hills, where flocks of sheep browsed in the pleasant shade beneath the tall oak trees. He saw, far off on the highest summit of the wavy ridge, the turrets of the great castle rear themselves above the foliage like a crown—the royal diadem upon all these sun-bathed hills and valleys. He stood within the cottage, the happy cottage under the sheltering sycamores; and, brighter, clearer, more beautiful than all these, he saw a face look down upon him with a calm and earnest smile. It was the home of his childhood, it was the face of his mother, all raised in the mirage of sleep—a radiant vision lifted from the heavy gloom of forty years, years upon which Immanuel Kant, years upon which the Transcendental school had crept with their baleful influence, poisonous as the deadly nightshade. He struggled to speak, and wakened. A dream, yes, all a dream! He pressed his hands against his brow—A dream? Yes, childhood had been but a dream. Life itself is but an unhappy dream! The wild December wind still blew with a rattling noise against the windows, and sometimes swept round the corner with a dreary, half-smothered cry. The candle had burned down almost to the socket, and was seized more frequently than before with its painful spasms, making each gaunt shadow of the few pieces of furniture writhe in a weird, silent dance on the wall. As the Professor sat on the bed, they appeared to him like voiceless demons, performing some diabolical ceremony, luring his soul to destruction. Then they seemed moving in fantastic measure to a soundless dirge, which he strained his ears to hear, when the candle burned steadily, and they paused in their dumb incantation.