What did it mean? It seemed to mean something. The world withdrawn-- life withdrawn--sound withdrawn--breath withdrawn. He stood and waited. Perhaps this was one of the symptoms of the morbid thing for which there was that name. If so he had better get away quickly and have it over, lest he be found wandering about not knowing--not knowing. But now he knew--the Silence. He waited--waited and tried to hear, as if something was calling him--calling without sound. It returned to him-- the thought of That which had waited through all the ages to see what he--one man--would do. He had never exactly pitied himself before--he did not know that he pitied himself now, but he was a man going to his death, and a light, cold sweat broke out on him and it seemed as if it was not he who did it, but some other--he flung out his arms and cried aloud words he had not known he was going to speak. "Lord! Lord! What shall I do to be saved?" But the Silence gave no answer. It was the Silence still. And after standing a few moments panting, his arms fell and his head dropped, and turning the handle of the door, he went out to buy the pistol. II As he went down the narrow staircase, covered with its dingy and threadbare carpet, he found the house so full of dirty yellow haze that he realized that the fog must be of the extraordinary ones which are remembered in after-years as abnormal specimens of their kind. He recalled that there had been one of the sort three years before, and that traffic and business had been almost entirely stopped by it, that accidents had happened in the streets, and that people having lost their way had wandered about turning corners until they found themselves far from their intended destinations and obliged to take refuge in hotels or the houses of hospitable strangers. Curious incidents had occurred and odd stories were told by those who had felt themselves obliged by circumstances to go out into the baffling gloom. He guessed that something of a like nature had fallen upon the town again. The gas-light on the landings and in the melancholy hall burned feebly--so feebly that one got but a vague view of the rickety hat-stand and the shabby overcoats and head-gear hanging upon it. It was well for him that he had but a corner or so to turn before he reached the pawnshop in whose window he had seen the pistol he intended to buy.