The knife dropped on to the floor with a sharp sound, and he sank into a chair. What a wretched, miserable creature he was, after all! There was nothing fine about him—there was nothing fine about anyone at Moffatt's—they were all a miserable lot... and to-morrow there would be speeches and prizes and cheering! What a funny thing life was!
But it was no use thinking about life with that knife on the floor. It was quite clear that he wasn't going to do anything to-night—he might just as well go to bed. His headache was dreadfully bad, and he was shivering all over. He put the knife into a drawer and blew out his lamp.
He hated the dark—he had always hated it—and so he hurried into his bedroom and tried to light his candle, but his hand was shaking so that it was a long time before he could strike a match, and he cursed the matches feebly and felt inclined to cry.
He was a long time undressing and sat on the edge of the bed in his shirt and looked at his long, thin legs and hated them; then he saw the black marks on the yellow paper, and he scratched another off.... At last he blew out the candle and got into bed.
He seemed to fall asleep all at once and was aware that he was asleep—but after a time he felt that although he was asleep, he was conscious of someone watching him. He opened his eyes and saw that the other Mr. Perrin was sitting by his bed, watching him, and although the room was quite dark, the gray figure was in some way luminous, so that he could see that he wore a long, gray cloak and that his features were exactly the same as his own. He was forced against his will to get out of bed and to follow the other Mr. Perrin out of the house, down the long, white road, down to the sea. Here they were in that little cove where Traill and Miss Desart had been that afternoon. They sat with their backs against the rocks, and in all the air there was a strange, uncertain light, and the sea came over the shore in sullen, dreamy movements, as a tired woman's fingers move when she is sewing.
Then Mr. Perrin saw that down the beach there passed a long procession of gray, bending figures with heavy burdens on their backs. Their faces were white and hopeless, and their hands, with long, white fingers, hung at their sides.
He was conscious of some great feeling of injustice—that this must not be allowed—and an over-mastering impulse to call out that it was all wrong and to run forward and relieve them of their burdens—but he could not move nor utter any sound. Then suddenly he recognized faces that he knew, and he saw White and Birkland and Combers and Dormer and then—his own.
He gave a great cry and broke from his companion and rushed swiftly back up the white road, in through the black gates, up the stairs, and into his room.
He stood in the middle of his room and felt suddenly cold. To his surprise he saw that the moon was shining through the window, although there had been no moon on the beach. The room was so bright that he could distinguish every object perfectly—and then he realized slowly that things were different. Those silver-backed hair-brushes were not his, his bed was not there—that photograph....
Someone was in the bed.