note of sadness.
I feel it now; I shall feel it always. There was madness in my blood
when I started, I think; but before my walk was half over, it had
increased a thousand-fold. Every little sound and sight seemed to
aggravate it. I missed the dull sighing and moaning of the wind in the
black copses--a sound which had somehow endeared itself to me during
these last few days--and in its place the soft murmur of what seemed
almost a summer breeze amongst the tall pine-tops stirred in me an
unreasonable anger. The face of the whole country seemed smiling at
me. What mockery! What right had the earth to rejoice when grief and
anxiety were driving me mad? For it was indeed a sort of madness which
laid hold of me. I clenched my hands, and muttered to myself as I
walked swiftly along. The road was deserted, and I met no one. Once
a dark bush away off seemed to me to take a man's shape. I stopped
short. Could it be Father Adrian returning to the Abbey? I felt my
breath come quickly as I stood there waiting. The idea excited me.
I found myself trembling with a passion that was not of fear, and,
suddenly stooping down, I picked up a sharp flint, and grasped it
tightly between my fingers. Then I moved stealthily on, and the thing
defined itself. After all, it was only a bush, not a man at all. I
tossed my weapon on one side with a strained little laugh. The sense
of excitement passed away, but it left an odd flavour behind it. I
found myself deliberating as to what I had meant to do with that
stone if it had really been Father Adrian, and if I had succeeded in
stealing silently up behind him. Perhaps I scarcely realized my
full intention, but a dim sense of it remained with me. It was the
development of a new instinct born of this swiftly-built-up hatred.
I have my reasons for writing of this. I wish to distinctly mark the
period of the event which I have just recorded.

There was no fear of my mistaking the way to Vaux Abbey, for it stood
upon a hill, and had been within sight ever since I had taken the
moorland road. I was unused to walking, and the road was rough; but I
do not remember once feeling in any way fatigued or footsore, although
one of my shoes had a great hole in it, and was almost in strips. My
mind was too full of the end of my journey to be conscious of such
things. I had only one fear: that I should be too late; that somehow
the threatened blow would have been struck, and Paul in some way
removed from me. It w