Silas got up from his knees
trembling, and looked round at the table: didn't the gold lie there
after all? The table was bare. Then he turned and looked behind him-
looked all round his dwelling, seeming to strain his brown eyes
after some possible appearance of the bags, where he had already
sought them in vain. He could see every object in his cottage- and his
gold was not there.
Again he put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild
ringing scream, the cry of desolation. For a few moments after, he
stood motionless; but the cry had relieved him from the first
maddening pressure of the truth. He turned and tottered towards his
loom, and got into the seat where he worked, instinctively seeking
this as the strongest assurance of reality.
And now that all the false hopes had vanished, and the first
shock of certainty was past, the idea of a thief began to present
itself, and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught
and made to restore the gold. The thought brought some new strength
with it, and he started from his loom to the door. As he opened it the
rain beat in upon him, for it was falling more and more heavily. There
were no footsteps to be tracked on such a night- footsteps? When had
the thief come? During Silas's absence in the daytime the door had
been locked, and there had been no marks of any inroad on his return
by daylight.
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