Through the warm vapours of that polluted tower the man staggered upward. His breathing had now become stertorous, and beat in the hollow staircase and against the sounding boards furnished by the empty rooms like the snorting of a hunted monster.
The air grew thicker in his lungs, and his heart tingled and throbbed as though it would burst. The arteries in his neck appeared at each beat of his pulse about to jump from their places. His gullet was dry, and the air rushing through his windpipe seemed burdened with sand that tore the skin of his parched throat. The arteries in his temple twanged against the bone with noises that made him giddy. The uproar of strangulation was in his head. His knees were sinking under him, and he felt he should faint or fall down in a fit if he did not do something.
He resolved to shift his burden from the right shoulder to the left.
How heavy! Ugh!
Cold already!
Oh, great God! the lips had touched his forehead, and they were cold! The lips he had a thousand times——
With a howl that made the hollow chambers and the invisible staircase shake, he clasped his burden to his left shoulder and dashed wildly up the stairs.
Now he ran against the wall in front, now against the balustrade. He took a step too many, and plunged headforemost against the wall. He took a step too few, and fell headlong upon a landing.
What was all that to him now? What was all that to him, who had loved her once, her whose cold lips—cold of his own chilling—had touched his forehead as he shifted his murdered darling from one shoulder to another?
Oh, God! the lips he had lingered on lovingly long ago! The lips he had sought with all his soul and won to his own exclusive use! How often had they told his name! How often had they told her love to him, when all else in the world sank into nothingness compared with the august privilege of knowing she loved him! How often when she slept had he heard those lips breathe his name with terms of endearment! And now, oh God!