long hours of that dead
night burned in his brain like molten lead. The face which Greta had
seen, and which his mother must also have seen, seemed to rise up before
him as he sat in that deserted chamber. He saw his own face as he might
have seen it in a glass. Not even the blackness of night could conceal
it. Clear as a face seen in the day it shone and burned in that dark
room. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but it was still before him. It
was within him. It was imprinted in features of fire on his brain. He
trembled with fear, never until that hour knowing what fear was. It
acted upon him like his own ghost.

He knew it was but a phantasy, but no phantasy was ever more horrible.
He got up to banish it, and it stood before him face to face. He sunk
down again, and it sat beside him eye to eye.

Then it changed. For a moment it faded away into a palpitating mist, and
the tension of his gaze relaxed. How blessed was that moment's respite!
His thought returned to his mother. "If ever the world should mock you
with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and
that she loved you to the last." Dear, sacred soul. Little fear that he
should forget it! Little fear that the wise world should tarnish the
fair shrine of that holy love! Tears of tenderness rose to his eyes, and
in the midst of them he thought his mother sat before him. Her head was
bent; an all-eating shame was crimsoning her pale cheek. Then he knew
that other eyes were upon her, looking into her heart, prying deep down
into her dead past, keeping open the heavy eyelids that could never
sleep. He looked up; his own shadow was silently gazing down upon both
of them.

Paul leaped to his feet and ran out of the room. Surely the spirit of
his mother still inhabited the deserted chamber. Surely this was the
shadow that had driven her away. Big drops of sweat rolled in beads from
his forehead. He went out of the house. Heavy black clouds were adrift
in a stormy sky; behind them, the bright moon was scudding.

He walked among the naked trees of the gaunt wood at the foot of
Coledale, and listened to the short breathings of the wind among the
frost-covered boughs. At every second step he gave a quick glance
backward. But at last he saw the thing he looked for--it was walking
with him side by side, pace for pace.

He passed slowly out of the wood, not daring now to run. The white fell
rose sheer up to the grim, gray crags that hung in shaggy,