Not daring to rise, and unable to roll himself up
the slight slope, he shifted himself sideways along the ground, inch by
inch, for a few yards, then rose, and ran staggering away, as from a
monster that might wake and pursue and overtake him. He doubted if he
would ever have recovered the sudden shock of his awful position, of his
one glance into the ghastly depth, but for the worse horror of the
all-but-conviction that his brother had gone down to Hades through that
terrible descent. If only he too had gone, he cried in his misery, they
would now be together, with no wicked woman between their hearts! For his
love too was changed into loathing. He too was at once, and entirely, and
for ever freed from her fascination. The very thought of her was hateful
to him.
With straight course, but wavering walk, he made his way through the
moonlight to demand his brother. He too picked up the handkerchief, and
dropped it with disgust.
What followed in the lady's chamber, I have already given in his own
words.
When he fled from the chalet, it was with self-slaughter in his heart.
But he endured in the comfort of the thought that the door of death was
always open, that he might enter when he would. He sought the foot of the
fall the same night; then, as one possessed of demons to the tombs, fled
to the solitary places of the dark mountains.
He went through many a sore stress.
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