But sleep came not, and he tossed feverishly from side to side, bewildered by the thoughts that rushed through his brain: old faces, old scenes, and, foremost among them, home, and the stern countenance of his father, came crowding back. Now he would doze, but to start up in a few minutes under the impression that he was called. He dozed off again and again, but always to start up with the same fancy, and once he felt so sure that he leaped out of bed and opened his door; but the dark passage was empty, and all without quite still, so he returned to his bed, sat there for a few minutes thinking, and then went to the window, drew the blind, and stood gazing out upon the buildings of the familiar market-place.
The wind swept by, swinging the old sign to and fro, while all looked so calm and peaceful that he returned to his bed, and again tried for rest, falling into a fevered, half sleeping, half waking state, wherein the old faces still came crowding back, now nearer and nearer, now seeming to vanish away into nothingness, till at last that one old face seemed to exclude all others, and he saw his father as he saw him last, frowning harshly upon him; but soon the face assumed an aspect of pity, a look that told the suffering man that he was forgiven, before it changed into the frigid hardness of death.
Septimus Hardon started up in bed and gazed at the dim, shaded window, hardly realising where he was, as he tried to get rid of the dread image which oppressed him; but the night through, hour after hour, as soon as he closed his eyes, there was the same cold, stern face, as though impressed upon his brain, and wanting but the exclusion of the light for him to direct his gaze inward upon the fixed lineaments. So on, hour after hour, dozing and starting up, till the first streaks of the coming day appeared in the east, and as they grew stronger, peering in through the bedroom window, and holding forth to view the various objects in the room in a half-shadowed, ghostly manner that completely chased away the remaining desire for sleep that lingered with the unnerved man.
“Knocked three times, mem,” said Charles, “and can’t make him hear.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs Lower. “I’ll go myself presently.”
Mrs Lower had carefully prepared what she considered a snug breakfast, and put her regular body to no slight inconvenience by waiting past her usual hour for the morning meal; but she thought of her visitor’s fatigue and trouble.
“He can’t do better than sleep, poor boy,” she muttered, descending the stairs, after listening at the bedroom door for the third time; when she sat in the bar and waited for quite an hour, till suddenly a thought struck her, which set her trembling and wringing her hands, and her comely old face worked as she tried to keep back the tears.
“O, if he has—if he has! O, my poor boy!” she exclaimed, hurrying up the staircase, and stumbling at every second step in her agitation. “O, Charles, come with me!”
The door yielded to her touch, and almost falling against the bed, Mrs Lower found it empty, while the pillow was quite cold.
“O, look round—look round, Charles!” she gasped, as she sank upon her knees at the bedside, and buried her face in the clothes.