CHAPTER XLI.
A Human Voice.—The Departure.—An Unexpected Meeting.—The Reception.
The dim, cold, uncertain light of morning was faintly gleaming in long sickly streaks in the eastern sky, and the trembling, half-maddened Jacob Gray crawled to the window of his room, and hastily tearing down some paper that patched a broken pane of glass, he placed his scorched and dry lips against the opening, and drank in the cool morning’s air as one who had crossed a desert would quaff from the first spring he met after the horrors and thirst of the wilderness.
On his knees the wretched man remained for some time, until the mad fever of his blood subsided, and calmer reflection came to his aid.
“I cannot sleep,” he said, “I cannot sleep—’tis madness to attempt it; my waking thoughts are bad enough, but when reason sleeps, and the imagination, unshackled by probability commences its reign, then all the wildest fancies become realities and I live in a world of horrors, such as the damned alone can endure, endurance must constitute a portion of their suffering, for if they felt so acutely as to decrease sensation, they would be happy. Alas! What can I do, I must rest sometimes. Exhausted nature will not be defrauded of her rights; but while the body rests, the mind seems to take a flight to hell! Oh, horrible! Horrible! I—I—wonder if Ada be awake—methinks now the sound of a human voice would be music to my ears, I will creep to her chamber door, and speak to her the slightest word in answer will be a blessing. Yes, I will go—I will go.” Jacob Gray then, with a slow and stealthy step, left his chamber, and as he glided along the dim corridor of that ancient house, he might, with his haggard looks and straining eyes, have well been taken for the perturbed spirit that popular superstition said had been seen about the ill-omened residence of crime and death.
He reached Ada’s door, and after a pause, he knocked nervously and timidly upon the panel. There was no answer, Ada slept—she was dreaming of happiness, of joy, that brought pearly tears to her eyes—those eyes that are the blissful overflowings of a heart too full of grateful feeling. Again Jacob Gray knocked, and he cried “Ada!” in a voice that was too low and tremulous to reach the ears of the sleeping girl, but which startled Gray himself by the hollow echoes it awakened in the silence of the gloomy house.
Again he knocked, and this time Ada started from her sleep—Gray heard the slight movement of the girl.
“Ada!” he said, “Ada, speak!”
“Jacob Gray!” said Ada.
“Ada—I—I am going forth—speak Ada, again.”