He was fleeing from his young manhood's senses, and they were in hot pursuit.
He dashed through the woods at full speed. The frosty air did not cool him, nor the darkness restore his serenity.
Was there no salvation? None?
He thought of the parsonage. A jeering laugh rose to his lips. Helene had shrunk from him when he had approached her with clean hands and a pure heart. What would she do to-day if he came into her presence bearing a curse and an insupportable burden of guilt upon him?
And yet that one spot of earth was sacred to memories of all that had been purest, most peaceful and happy in his blighted life. Ought such a refuge of light to be denied to him, even if a thousand curses had descended upon his head from the outer darkness?
Almost against his will his footsteps took the road to the village. It was reposing peacefully. Only from the windows of the Black Eagle a ruddy glow was cast on the white expanse of snow. The clock in the church tower struck one. He must have been tramping about for five hours, and it seemed like five minutes. Faint moonbeams shone on the sleigh-ruts, which looked like long white ribbons unrolled on the ground, and the mass of icicles hanging from the church roof spread a delicate silver filigree on the dark, time-stained walls.
He passed the church and came to the parsonage garden. There was a light in one of the gable windows. His heart seemed to bound into his throat. He swung himself over the hedge, and strode through the deep snow to the summer-house, which stood at a distance of twenty paces from the gable. In its shadow he took up his position.
A white curtain was drawn across the illuminated casement. On the surface of the chintz a delicate tracery of leaves and stalks was reflected from flower-pots inside. There was her virgin paradise; there she ruled as modestly and sweetly as the Madonna in her rose-garden.
And again the picture in the cathedral rose before his mental eyes, as it always did when he tried to realise the presence of the beloved. Oh! for one second in which to feast his bodily eye on that dear, forgotten face, so that what time and guilt had deadened in him might revive and live anew!
For a moment the outline of a girl's figure darkened the illuminated window-pane. A corner of the curtain was lifted.