He slammed the door and looked after the carriage as it rolled down the block and rounded the corner. Then he turned and re-entered the house.
When Father Algarcife reached the rectory, he went into his study, locking the door after him. Then he seated himself at his desk and rested his head in his hands. His mind had cleared from the fog, but he did not think. He remained staring blankly before him.
The room was cold and damp, the fire had not been kindled, and the burned-out coals lay livid upon the hearth. The easy-chair was drawn before the fender where he had sat yesterday, and the lamp which he had not lighted the evening before stood on the little marble-top table. An open book, his pipe, and an untasted cup of coffee were beside it.
On the desk his yesterday's sermon lay unrolled, the text facing him in bold black and white:
"For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"
The dull, neutral tones of advancing dawn flooded the room. There was a suggestion of expectancy about it, as of a world uncreate, waiting for light and birth.
He raised his eyes, not his head, and stared over the desk at the wall beyond. From above the mantel the portrait of Father Speares's ancestor glared at him from its massive frame, wearing the fierce and faded aspect of a past century. Near the window stood the sofa, with the worn spot on the leather arm where the head of the dead man had rested. It was all chill and leaden and devoid of color.
Presently he moved, and, opening a drawer of the desk, drew out a small dark phial and placed it upon the unfolded leaves of the sermon. Through the blue glass the transparent liquid gleamed like silver. His movements were automatic. There was no haste, no precipitation, no hint of indecision. He looked at the clock upon the mantel, watching the gradual passage of the hands. When the minute-hand reached the hour he would have done with it all—with all things forever.
The colorless liquid in the small blue phial lay within reach of his grasp. It seemed to him that he saw already a man lying on that leathern sofa—saw the protruding eyes, the relaxed limbs, the clammy sweat, and saw nothing more that would be after him under the sun. The hands of the clock moved on. A finger of sunlight pierced the curtains and pointed to the ashes in the grate. Outside the noise of a crowded city went on tumultuously. He removed the cork of the bottle, inhaling a pungent and pervasive odor of bitter almonds.
At the same instant a voice called him, and there was a knock at his door.