able and more practical, that he had promised what he
could never perform. Even as he struggled to beat back the phantasmagoria
of the mist, and resolved that he would no longer make all the streets a
stage of apparitions, he hardly realized what he had done, or that the
ghosts he had called might depart and return again.

He continued his long walks, always with the object of producing a
physical weariness and exhaustion that would enable him to sleep of
nights. But even when he saw the foggy and deserted avenues in their
proper shape, and allowed his eyes to catch the pale glimmer of the
lamps, and the dancing flame of the firelight, he could not rid himself
of the impression that he stood afar off, that between those hearths and
himself there was a great gulf fixed. As he paced down the footpath he
could often see plainly across the frozen shrubs into the homely and
cheerful rooms. Sometimes, late in the evening, he caught a passing
glimpse of the family at tea, father, mother, and children laughing and
talking together, well pleased with each other's company. Sometimes a
wife or a child was standing by the garden gate peering anxiously through
the fog, and the sight of it all, all the little details, the hideous but
comfortable armchairs turned ready to the fire, maroon-red curtains being
drawn close to shut out the ugly night, the sudden blaze and illumination
as the fire was poked up so that it might be cheerful for father; these
trivial and common things were acutely significant. They brought back to
him the image of a dead boy--himself. They recalled the shabby old
"parlor" in the country, with its shabby old furniture and fading carpet,
and renewed a whole atmosphere of affection and homely comfort. His
mother would walk to the end of the drive and look out for him when he
was late (wandering then about the dark woodlands); on winter evenings
she would make the fire blaze, and have his slippers warming by the
hearth, and there was probably buttered toast "as a treat." He dwelt on
all these insignificant petty circumstances, on the genial glow and light
after the muddy winter lanes, on the relish of the buttered toast and the
smell of the hot tea, on the two old cats curled fast asleep before the
fender, and made them instruments of exquisite pain and regret. Each of
these strange houses that he passed was identified in his mind with his
own vanished home; all was prepared and ready as in the old days, but he
was