He unconsciously drew in a long breath, expelling the air again
with some violence, like a man whose chest is oppressed. And how his
head ached! If he could only get a few hours sleep without that cursed
laudanum. Hark! what was that? A storm was coming up. It almost shook
the castle, solid and of stone as it was. But he was glad. A storm was
more in tune with his mood than calm. He would go out into the gallery
and watch it.
He left his room and went to the gallery to which he had gone to watch
a storm a little over a week ago. A week? It seemed so remote that for
the moment he could not recall the events of that last visit; his
head ached so that everything but physical suffering was temporarily
insignificant. There was no moon to-night. The sky was covered with
black, scurrying clouds, and he could only hear the angry, boiling
waters, not see them. He felt suffocated. He had felt so all the
evening. Besides the pain in his head there was a pressure on his
brain; he must have air; and he pulled open one of the windows and
stood within it.
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