At the edge of what abysmal precipice, and the end of what sombre perspective of Fate was he standing?
From youth upwards he had travelled the goodly highways of life. He had walked in the clear light, the four winds of heaven had blown upon him. Sunshine and Tempest, Dawn and Dusk, fair and foul weather had been his portion in common with the rest of the wayfaring world.
But now he had strayed from out the bright and strenuous paths of men. The brave high-road was far, far away. He had entered a strange and unfamiliar lane. The darkness had deepened. He had come into a marsh of miasmic mist lit up by pale fires that were not of heaven and where dreadful presences thronged the purple gloom.
This was the end of all things. A life of shame closed here—through that door where a living corpse was waiting for him "pent up in murderers' hole."
He felt a kindly and deprecating hand upon his arm.
"You will find it quite ordinary, really, sir. You needn't hesitate in the very least"—thus the consoling voice of Marriott.
Morton Sims walked into the cell.
Another warder who had been sitting there glided out. The door was closed. The doctor found himself heartily shaking hands with someone whom he did not seem to know.
And here again, as he was to remember exactly two years afterwards, under circumstances of supreme mental anguish and with a sick recognition of past experience, his sensation was without precedent.
Some one, was it not rather something? was shaking him warmly by the hand. A strained voice was greeting him. Yet he felt as if he were sawing at the arm of a great doll, not a live thing in which blood still circulated and systole and diastole still kept the soul co-ordinate and co-incident.