exhortations to carefulness on my way home, I said good-bye to dear old
nurse, considerably comforted, I must confess, that I was not doomed to
be a tutor all my days; for I never questioned the truth of that vision
and its consequent prophecy.

I went out into the midst of the storm, into the alternating throbs of
blackness and radiance; now the possessor of no more room than what my
body filled, and now isolated in world-wide space. And the thunder
seemed to follow me, bellowing after me as I went.

Absorbed in the story I had heard, I took my way, as I thought,
homewards. The whole country was well known to me. I should have said,
before that night, that I could have gone home blindfold. Whether the
lightning bewildered me and made me take a false turn, I cannot tell;
for the hardest thing to understand, in intellectual as well as moral
mistakes, is--how we came to go wrong. But after wandering for some
time, plunged in meditation, and with no warning whatever of the
presence of inimical powers, a brilliant lightning-flash showed me that
at least I was not near home. The light was prolonged for a second or
two by a slight electric pulsation; and by that I distinguished a wide
space of blackness on the ground in front of me. Once more wrapped in
the folds of a thick darkness, I dared not move. Suddenly it occurred to
me what the blackness was, and whither I had wandered. It was a huge
quarry, of great depth, long disused, and half filled with water. I knew
the place perfectly. A few more steps would have carried me over the
brink. I stood still, waiting for the next flash, that I might be quite
sure of the way I was about to take before I ventured to move. While I
stood, I fancied I heard a single hollow plunge in the black water far
below. When the lightning came, I turned, and took my path in another
direction.