The night wind swayed the heavy curtains to and fro, and half extinguished the brilliant jets of gas. He threw himself into a chair, and a vision of the Past rose up before him—the terrible Past. The ghosts of dead years haunted his brain, and remorse sat on his heart, boding and mysterious, like the Raven of the sweet poet—
"That unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore!"
That night, as we have said, he dreamt of two blue, innocent eyes, which once looked confidingly in his—of two infant arms which encircled his neck. Those eyes haunted him into the realm of sleep, where myriads of little arms were stretched out to him, and he turned restlessly on his pillow!
VIII.
He trudged along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
Dryden.