I flung myself
at it--found the knob--turned it and yelled aloud--My foot had
brushed against him. I knew the difference and it sent me
palpitating over the threshold; but no further. Love of life had
returned with my escape from that awful prison-house, and I halted
in the semidarkness into which I had plunged, thanking Heaven for
the thunder peal which had drowned my loud cry.
For I was not yet safe. He was still there. He had turned out all
lights but one, but this was sufficient to show me his tall figure
straining up to put out this last jet.
Another instant and darkness enveloped the whole place. He had not
seen me and was going. I could hear the sound of his feet as he
went stumbling in his zigzag course towards the door. Then every
sound both on his part and on mine was lost in a swoop of down-
falling rain and I remember nothing more till out of the blankness
before me, he started again into view, within the open doorway
where in the glare of what he called heaven's candles he stood,
poising himself to meet the gale which seemed ready to catch him
up and whirl him with other inconsequent things into the void of
nothingness. Then darkness settled again and I was left alone with
Murder;--all the innocence of my youth gone, and my soul a very
charnel house.
I had to re-enter that closet; I had to take the only means of
escape proffered. But I went through it as we go through the
horrors of nightmare. My muscles obeyed my volition, but my
sensibilities were no longer active.
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