Calmer!
Could he ever be calm again, till his brain had ceased to work and his heart to beat? Should he ever know profound repose until he slept the sleep of death?
Yet what was to insure him rest even within the tomb? Might he not encounter her in the beyond,—a thing apart from him through all eternity? During the brief period while he had cherished the thought of disappearing from the world for ever, he had pondered over many problems, which neither monk nor philosophers had been able to solve.
Could we but know what would be our lot after death!
There was a time, when he had rebelled against the thought that our footsteps are filled up and obliterated, as we pass on, like in a quicksand.
There was a time, he could not bear to think, that yesterday was indeed banished and gone for ever,—that a to-morrow must come of black and endless night.
And now he craved for nothing more than annihilation, complete unrelenting annihilation. He knew not what he believed. He knew not what he doubted. He knew not what he denied.
He was on the verge of madness.
And the devil was busy in his heart, suggesting a solution he had hitherto shunned. The thought filled him with dread, tossing him to and fro on a tempestuous sea of doubt and yet pointing to no other refuge from black despair.
He strove to resist the dread suggestion, but it grew upon him with fearful force and soon bore down all opposition.