reverence and love. One room was lighted up. Shadows flitted across the
curtained window, and my heart throbbed sensibly when, amongst them, I
imagined I could trace her form. I was borne down by a conviction of
wrong and culpability, but I could not move, or for a moment draw away
my look. It was a strange assurance that I felt--but I did feel it,
strongly and emphatically--that I should see her palpably before I left
the place. I waited for that sight in certain expectation, and it came.
A light was carried from the room. Diminished illumination there, and
sudden brightness against a previously darkened casement, made this
evident. The light ascended--another casement higher than the last was,
in its turn, illumined, and it betrayed her figure. She approached the
window, and, for an instant--oh how brief!--looked into the heavenly
night. My poor heart sickened with delight, and I strained my eyes long
after all was blank and dark again.

Daylight, and the employments of day, if they did not remove, weakened
the turbulence of the preceding night. The more I found my passion
acquiring mastery, with greater vigour I renewed my work, and with more
determination I pursued the objects that were most likely to fight and
overcome it. I laboured with the youths for a longer period. I undertook
to prepare a composition for the following day which I knew must take
much thought and many hours in working out. I armed myself at all
points--but the evening came and found me once more conscious of a void
that left me prostrate. Mr Fairman was again absent from home. I could
not rest in it, and I too sallied forth, but this time, to the village.
I would not deliberately offer violence to my conscience, and I shrunk
from a premeditated visit to the distant house. My own acquaintances in
the village were not many, or of long standing, but there were some half
dozen, especial favourites of the incumbent's daughter. To one of these
I bent my steps, with no other purpose than that of baffling time that