cottage at any moment, he felt an undefinable dread laying hold on
him, as he rose to his feet with the bags in his hand. He would
hasten out into the darkness, and then consider what he should do
with the bags. He closed the door behind him immediately, that he
might shut in the stream of light: a few steps would be enough to
carry him beyond betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks and
the latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and he was
glad of it; though it was awkward walking with both hands filled, so
that it was as much as he could do to grasp his whip along with one
of the bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he might take his
time. So he stepped forward into the darkness.



CHAPTER V

When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cottage, Silas Marner was
not more than a hundred yards away from it, plodding along from the
village with a sack thrown round his shoulders as an overcoat, and
with a horn lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind
was at ease, free from the presentiment of change. The sense of
security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction,
and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the
conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse
of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this
logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should
never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added
condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that
he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a
reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is