shly paced the
floor.

Had he possessed one chum, to whom he could pour out this agony and who
in turn could have jolted him back into a normal perspective, Jeb might
have faced the issue with coolness and even gladness, as millions of
other fellows were doing. But he had started wrong, and the farther he
stumbled down the wrong road the harder it was to struggle back. Each
hour he had let himself be confronted with agonizing thoughts of pain
and death--strangling in the cruel embrace of the one, or being drawn
whimpering into the mysterious uncertainty of the other; vivid
prospects, these, that drew him into a state of dumb hysteria. He
loathed himself, he loathed everything about him, until the untoward
tomorrows were nearly effaced by the self-torment of todays. To be
caught between the two was an endless terror--since tomorrows are always
tomorrows, and todays face us with every dawn. Trembling at the
uncertainties ahead, he longed for that peace which is only found in the
finalities of yesterdays. With anguished eyes he peered into the future,
and wrung his hands impotently.

When he heard Miss Sallie and Miss Veemie coming up to say goodnight, he
slipped between the sheets and remained impassive while they fussed
about, touching the pillow here or patting the coverlet there. At last,
alone for the night, he crossed silently to the door and locked it; then
drew a chair to the window and gazed moodily out into the trees, one of
whose branches brushed the sill on which he leaned.

There was an agitation in the leaves that seemed to whisper eerie things
to him; they were stirred by some invisible emotion--by fear, he
thought. To his mind all nature was trembling before the great human
sacrifice about to be demanded of this fair land; and he imagined other
trees, forests upon forests of them, vines, flowers, grasses--aye,
mountains and gorges, even--being obsessed by this same dumb shivering.
"The world is shivering," he whispered. He was shivering! How long, he
wondered, must it be before this quietly shivering world would burst
into a raging frenzy, as these trees within touch of him had been
whipped by storms of unbridled passion! He recalled a storm in the
previous summer, when green leaves torn from their stems were driven
before the hurricane and plastered on these very window panes above his
head. He likened it to a man-made fury, wherein pieces of human body
would be blown about with the same unrelenting ind