When he recovered, he staggered to his feet, and looked around him. He was still there, in the room, which was now quite dark, but he was alone. He awoke as from death, with the cold sweat upon his forehead, his form shaking like a leaf. What a change the experience of the last hour had made in him! He felt as if he had been mad for years. As the sick horror of his position spread over his bewildered senses, he groaned aloud.
Then remembering where he was, and fearing the surrounding darkness, he groped towards the door.
Suddenly it opened, and Haldane himself, holding a lamp in his hand, appeared upon the threshold. As the light flashed upon the minister’s form, it showed a face horrible in its anguish and despair. With his hair wild and dishevelled, his neckcloth disarranged, his black frock suit disordered, Santley seemed transformed. His beauty was turned into ugliness, his elegance into coarseness; his head, no longer erect and proud, drooped between his shoulders like an old man’s.
“Where are you going?” said Haldane, interposing, and placing down the lamp he carried.
“Up yonder, to see if it is true. It is surely a frightful dream! Let me pass!”
“Stay where you are! Your presence shall not outrage the dead again.”
“She is dead, then?”
“What you have seen, you have seen.”
“And—you—you killed her? Is it true?”
“Perfectly.”