parallel with it, watching its
heavy wheels and brazen front, and thinking what a cruel power and might
it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly turning, and to think of
being run down and crushed!

Disordered with wine and want of rest--that want which nothing, although
he was so weary, would appease--these ideas and objects assumed a
diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to his room,
which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him, and he sat
listening for the coming of another.

So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still lay
listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up and went
to the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the dull light
changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping glowing
coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled past, and the track of glare
and smoke along the valley. Then he would glance in the direction by
which he intended to depart at sunrise, as there was no rest for him
there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the vision of his
journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet,
until another came. This lasted all night. So far from resuming the
mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it more and more, as
the night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was still tormented with
thinking, still postponing thought until he should be in a better state;
the past, present, and future all floated confusedly before him, and he
had lost all power of looking steadily at any one of them.

'At what time,' he asked the man who had waited on hIm over-night, now
entering with a candle, 'do I leave here, did you say?'

'About a quarter after four, Sir. Express comes through at four,
Sir.--It don't stop.

He passed his hand across his throbbing head, and looked at his watch.
Nearly half-past three.

'Nobody going with you, Sir, probably,' observed the man. 'Two gentlemen
here, Sir, but they're waiting for the train to London.'

'I thought you said there was nobody here,' said Carker, turning upon
him with the ghost of his old smile, when he was angry or suspicious.

'Not then, sir. Two gentlemen came in the night by the short train that
stops here, Sir. Warm water, Sir?'

'No; and take away the candle. There's day enough for me.'

Having thrown himself upon the bed, half-dressed he was at the window as
the man left the room. The cold light of morning had succeeded