Shadows of familiar
people, stooping at their desks and books, in their remembered
attitudes; strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from, or
of Edith; repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels, of words
that had been spoken; confusions of time and place, making last night
a month ago, a month ago last night--home now distant beyond hope, now
instantly accessible; commotion, discord, hurry, darkness, and confusion
in his mind, and all around him.--Hallo! Hi! away at a gallop over the
black landscape; dust and dirt flying like spray, the smoking horses
snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden by a demon, away in
a frantic triumph on the dark road--whither?

Again the nameless shock comes speeding up, and as it passes, the bells
ring in his ears 'whither?' The wheels roar in his ears 'whither?' All
the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry. The lights and shadows
dance upon the horses' heads like imps. No stopping now: no slackening!
On, on Away with him upon the dark road wildly!

He could not think to any purpose. He could not separate one subject of
reflection from another, sufficiently to dwell upon it, by itself, for
a minute at a time. The crash of his project for the gaining of a
voluptuous compensation for past restraint; the overthrow of his
treachery to one who had been true and generous to him, but whose least
proud word and look he had treasured up, at interest, for years--for
false and subtle men will always secretly despise and dislike the object
upon which they fawn and always resent the payment and receipt of homage
that they know to be worthless; these were the themes uppermost in his
mind. A lurking rage against the woman who had so entrapped him and
avenged herself was always there; crude and misshapen schemes of
retaliation upon her, floated in his brain; but nothing was distinct. A
hurry and contradiction pervaded all his thoughts. Even while he was so
busy with this fevered, ineffectual thinking, his one constant idea was,
that he would postpone reflection until some indefinite time.

Then, the old days before the second marriage rose up in his
remembrance. He thought how jealous he had been of the boy, how jealous
he had been of the girl, how artfully he had kept intruders at a
distance, and drawn a circle round his dupe that none but himself should
cross; and then he thought, had he done all this to be flying now, like
a scared thief, from only the poor du