nd. What if they
should discover the key in the box, knowing that I was the only fellow
up stairs? Oh, mercy, mercy, mercy!"

It was a lonely place, and he flung himself, with his face hid in the
coarse grass, trying to cool the wild burning of his brow. And as he
lay, he thrust his hand into the guilty pocket. Good heavens! there was
something still there. He pulled it out; it was a sovereign! Then he WAS
a thief, even actually. Oh, everything was against him; and, starting to
his feet, he flung the accursed gold over the rocks far into the sea.

When he got home he felt so inconceivably wretched that, unable to work,
he begged leave to go to bed at once. It was long before he fell asleep;
but when he did, the sleep was more terrible than the haunted
wakefulness. For he had no rest from tormenting and horrid dreams.
Brigson and Billy, their bodies grown to gigantic proportions, and their
faces fierce with demoniacal wickedness, seemed to be standing over him,
and demanding five pounds on pain of death. Flights of pigeons darkening
the air, settled on him, and flapped about him. He fled from them madly
through the dark midnight, but many steps pursued him. He saw Mr. Rose,
and running up, seized him by the hand, and implored protection. But in
his dream Mr. Rose turned from him with a cold look of sorrowful
reproach. And then he saw Wildney, and cried out to him, "O Charlie,
save me;" but Charlie ran away, saying, "Williams, you are a thief!" and
then a chorus of voices took up that awful cry, voices of expostulation,
voices of contempt, voices of indignation, voices of menace; they took
up the cry, and repeated and re-echoed it; but, most unendurable of all,
there were voices of wailing and voices of gentleness among them, and
his soul died within him as he caught, amid the confusion of condemning
sounds, the voices of Russell and Vernon, and they, too, were saying to
him, in tender pity and agonized astonishment, "Eric, Eric, you are
a thief!"

CHAPTER XI

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

"For alas! alas! with me
The light of life is o'er;
No more--no more--no more
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!"

EDGAR A. POE.

The landlord of the Jolly Herring had observed during his visits to
Eric, that at mid-day the studies were usually deserted, and the doors
for the most part left