Creeping away with the silence in which he had come to the threshold, without revealing his presence to the returned wayfarer, or causing him once to refrain from his labours, the man from the street returned in a kind of despair to that outer element of darkness out of which he had emerged.
“Oh,” he muttered, as the scalding tears sprang out of his eyes as he traversed the inhospitable pavements of the streets; “I wish now that I had not seen him. It is just as I thought it would be.”
Yet the next evening at the same hour the man from the street tapped upon the shutter again; and again his summons was answered by the old man within.
“How is he now?” asked the visitor breathlessly. “I hope there is no change for the worse.”
“You may enter and look upon him,” said the old man.
“I don’t think I want to do that,” said the visitor with fear in his eyes. “I think I would rather not do so.”
“Perhaps,” said the old man, “you may find a change for the better.”
“No, I don’t think I will come in,” said the man with weak tremulousness; but this he seemed suddenly to discard in a kind of disgust, and he followed the old man through the darkness of the shop.
As he came to stand again upon the threshold of the little room he saw that the returned wayfarer had scarcely changed his posture from the previous evening, and was writing still. The mass of papers before him, covered in a fine and delicate writing, were an ever-increasing pile. Yet the man from the street hardly dared to look at the face of the writer. At last, however, he summoned the courage to do so, and in the act of beholding it almost revealed his presence by a cry of surprise. For the face was no longer transfigured with terror: it was as calm, serene, and peaceful as that of Nature upon an evening of summer.
Again the man from the street returned to his element; and this time in lieu of his previous despair was a sort of bewildered gladness. The face he had looked upon that evening was one of such wisdom and beauty, that even eyes such as his own could not misread its meaning. “Oh, how beautiful he is! How beautiful he is!” he exclaimed as he walked along.