What nights I had after this, in watching and striving lest unawares I should be led to the exercise of my new power! I allowed myself to think of her as much as I pleased in the daytime, or at least as much as I dared; for when occupied with my pupils, I dreaded lest any abstraction should even hint that I had a thought to conceal. I knew that I could not hurt her then; for that only in the night did she enter that state of existence in which my will could exercise authority over her. But at night—at night—when I knew she lay there, and might be lying here; when but a thought would bring her, and that thought was fluttering its wings, ready to wake from the dreams of my heart; then the struggle was fearful. “Bring her yet once, and tell her all—tell her how madly, hopelessly you love her—she will forgive you,” said a voice within me; but I heard it as the voice of the tempter, and kept down the thought which might have grown to the will.
FOOTNOTES
[4] Hamlet, Act 1, Scene i.
Studies in Animal Life.
“Authentic tidings of invisible things;—
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,
And central peace subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.”—The Excursion.