Left alone he paced up and down the floor in troubled thought, for about the space of an hour. All about the house was profoundly still; no sound was heard but the mournful murmur of the wind, and the dreary beating of the rain. The clock struck twelve, and the strokes fell through the awful stillness of the night with preternatural solemnity. “So late! and I not yet calm enough to sleep—fearing to sleep, almost, lest I should never wake again. What is this? Why now does the solitude and silence of my chamber so affect, so appall, me? The truth is, I am ill! must be, or I should not be so weak. I did not kill her. No, I did not kill her. I did not take any means to recover her for hours? Well! what if I did not? That was not murder! I let her die in her fit for want of assistance? She might have died anyhow. Why does her image haunt my bed, driving sleep thence? Oh, miserable weakness! Oh, cowardice! Would my bitterest enemy believe it of me? that I dread to look around me, lest I see her face? It is this that is my illness. Oh, doctor! can your drugs banish her thoughts? Pshaw! They say nothing evil can come into the neighborhood of innocence. Nettie! my Nettie is near me! in the next room. Surely my reason wanders. What evil could come nigh me? She was not ‘evil’ on earth. She is not ‘evil’ in heaven. She would not avenge herself, if she could. Oh, wretched driveling! What am I talking of? I am ill—I must be. It is illness that raises these phantoms of dread. And solitude and uncommunicated thoughts and sorrows have caused this illness. Courage! This is my last lonely night. To-morrow, and ever after to-morrow, the cheerful face of that fair girl shall banish all such sickly fancies. To-morrow, and ever after to-morrow. But to-night I cannot rest at all. I—I will go and look at Nettie, sleeping; the innocence of slumbering childhood shall disperse the cloud of devils lowering over me. Nettie! ‘The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children——’ I dare not. No! I dare not now. No! I dare not.” He dropped upon a chair—struck both hands to his forehead, whence the cold sweat oozed. He sat there, heedless, while the wind moaned around the house, and the rain beat drearily against the windows. He sat there, motionless, until the clock struck one, and the stroke fell like a knell. He started then, but relapsed, immediately, into statue-like stillness. The hour passed on, while the rain still beat, and the wind still moaned. The candle burned low in its socket, but he did not heed it. It flashed, filling the room with a strange brilliancy, and sunk, leaving it in darkness—but he did not heed it. It flashed and darkened—and flashed and darkened ever—but he did not heed it.