ad also heard that drowning men could review their entire lives in
the few instants that preceded their loss of consciousness, and he
acquired a new comprehension of this mystery. All the experiences of his
entire existence swept through his mind again and again with a rapidity
and a distinctness that astonished him. Like a great shuttle darting
back and forth through a fabric, his mind seemed to be passing again and
again forward and backward through all the scenes of the past. Finally,
and after what seemed uncounted ages, the great clock struck the hour of
midnight. One, two, three--he stood like a man rooted to the
ground,--four, five, six--his heart beat louder than the bell,--seven,
eight, nine--the blood seemed bursting through his temples,--ten,
eleven, twelve!--the light went out! The universe seemed to have been
instantaneously swallowed up in darkness. He could not see the figure
that crept to the window and gazed down upon him from behind the drapery
of the curtains. He did not know that Pepeeta had fallen upon her knees
in an agony deeper than his own, and was gazing down at him through
streaming tears. In those few succeeding moments the sense of his
personal loss was displaced by a sudden and overpowering sense of his
personal guilt. The full consciousness of his sin burst upon him. He saw
the selfishness of his love and the wickedness of his lust in a light
brighter than day.

There is a kind of rhododendron about Trebizond of which the bees make a
honey that drives people mad! He saw that illicit love was that honey of
Trebizond! He felt, as he had never felt before, the pressure of that
terrible power that over all and through all the discords and sins of
life makes resistlessly for righteousness. He perceived that a system of
wheels is attached to every thought and act, and that, each one sets in
motion the entire machinery of justice. He felt that every sleepless
starry eye in heaven penetrated the guilty secrets of his soul and was
pledged to the execution of judgment.

These perceptions confounded him with fear. His thoughts ceased to move
in order, tossing and teasing each other like straws in the wind. They
ceased to illumine the depths of his soul and only hung like flickering
candles above a dark mine.

Whether he looked up or down, without or within, he saw no hope, but it
was not until after the lapse of many and unnoted moments that the
disturbed machinery of his mind began to move. He awa