empty room; pointed to one of the walls, whispering, "It's only boards
papered over--" and then waited, keeping his eyes anxiously and
steadily fixed upon all my movements.

I listened; and through the thin partition, I heard voices--_her_
voice, and _his_ voice. _I heard and I knew_--knew my degradation in
all its infamy, knew my wrongs in all their nameless horror. He was
exulting in the patience and secrecy which had brought success to the
foul plot, foully hidden for months on months; foully hidden until the
very day before I was to have claimed as my wife, a wretch as guilty
as himself!

I could neither move nor breathe. The blood surged and heaved upward
to my brain; my heart strained and writhed in anguish; the life within
me raged and tore to get free. Whole years of the direst mental and
bodily agony were concentrated in that one moment of helpless,
motionless torment. I never lost the consciousness of suffering. I
heard the waiter say, under his breath, "My God! he's dying." I felt
him loosen my cravat--I knew that he dashed cold water over me;
dragged me out of the room; and, opening a window on the landing, held
me firmly where the night-air blew upon my face. I knew all this; and
knew when the paroxysm passed, and nothing remained of it, but a
shivering helplessness in every limb.

Erelong, the power of thinking began to return to me by degrees.

Misery, and shame, and horror, and a vain yearning to hide myself from
all human eyes, and weep out my life in secret, overcame me. Then,
these subsided; and ONE THOUGHT slowly arose in their stead--arose,
and cast down before it every obstacle of conscience, every principle