 Chapter 54 of Dombe and Son. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dombe and Son by Charles Dickens. Read by Cynthia Lyons, Naperville, Illinois. Chapter 54, The Fugitives. The time, an hour short of midnight, the place, a French apartment, comprising some half dozen rooms, a dull cold hall or corridor, a dining room, a drawing room, a bed chamber, and an inner drawing room or boudoir, smaller and more retired than the rest. All these shut in by one large pair of doors on the main staircase, but each room provided with two or three pairs of doors of its own, establishing several means of communication with the remaining portion of the apartment or with certain small passages within the wall, leading, as is not unusual in such houses, to some back stairs with an obscure outlet below. The whole situated on the first floor of so large an hotel that it did not absorb one entire row of windows upon one side of the square courtyard in the center, upon which the whole four sides of the mansion looked. An air of splendor, sufficiently faded to be melancholy and sufficiently dazzling to clog and embarrass the details of life with a show of state reigned in these rooms. The walls and ceilings were gilded and painted, the floors were waxed and polished. Crimson drapery hung in festoons from window door and mirror, candelabra gnarled and intertwisted like the branches of trees or horns of animals, stuck out from the panels of the wall. But in the daytime, when the lattice blinds, now closely shut were opened and the light let in, traces were discernible among this finery of wear and tear and dust, of sun and dampened smoke, and lengthened intervals of want of use and habitation when such shows and toys of life seem sensitive like life and waste as men shut up in prison do. Even night and clusters of burning candles could not wholly efface them, though the general glitter threw them in the shade. The glitter of bright tapers and their reflection in looking glasses, scraps of gilding and gay colors were confined on this night to one room, that smaller room within the rest just now enumerated. Seen from the hall where a lamp was feebly burning, through the dark perspective of open doors, it looked as shining and precious as a gem in the heart of its radiance, sat a beautiful woman, Edith. She was alone, the same defiant, scornful woman still, the cheek a little worn, the eye a little larger in appearance and more lustrous, but the hottie bearing just the same. No shame upon her brow, no late repentance bending her disdainful neck, imperious and stately yet, and yet regardless of herself and of all else, she sat with her dark eyes cast down, waiting for someone. No book, no work, no occupation of any kind, but her own thought beguiled the tardy time. Some purpose strong enough to fill up any pause possessed her. With her lips pressed together and quivering, if for a moment she released them from her control, with her nostril inflated, her hands clasped in one another, and her purpose swelling in her breast, she sat and waited. At the sound of a key in the outer door and a footstep in the hall, she started up and cried. Who's that? The answer was in French and two men came in with jingling trays to make preparation for supper. Who had bade them to do so, she asked. Monsieur had commanded it when it was his pleasure to take the apartment. Monsieur had said when he stayed there for an hour en route and left the letter for Madame. Madame had received it, surely. Yes, a thousand pardons, the sudden apprehension that it might have been forgotten had struck him, a bald man with a large beard from a neighboring restaurant. With despair, Monsieur had said that supper was to be ready at that hour, also that he had forewarned Madame of the commands he had given in his letter. Monsieur had done the golden head, the honor, to request that the supper should be choice and delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the golden head was not misplaced. Edith said no more, but looked on thoughtfully while they prepared the table for two persons and set the wine upon it. She arose before they had finished and taking a lamp passed into the bedchamber and into the drawing room, where she hurriedly but narrowly examined all the doors, particularly one in the former room that opened on the passage in the wall. From this she took the key and put it on the outer side. She then came back. The men, the second of whom was a dark, bilious subject in a jacket close shaved and with a black head of hair close cropped, had completed their preparation of the table and were standing looking at it. He who had spoken before inquired whether Madame thought it would be long before Monsieur arrived. She couldn't say it was all one. Pardon, there was the supper. It should be eaten on the instant. Monsieur, who spoke French like an angel or a Frenchman, it was all the same, had spoken with great emphasis of his punctuality but the English nation had so grand a genius for punctuality. Ah, what noise, great heaven. Here was Monsieur, behold him. In effect, Monsieur, admitted by the other of the two, came with his gleaming teeth through the dark room, like a mouth and arriving in that sanctuary of light and color, a figure at full length, embraced Madame and addressed her in the French tongue as his charming wife. My God, Madame is going to faint. Madame is overcome with joy. The bald man with the beard observed it and cried out. Madame had only shrunk and shivered. Before the words were spoken, she was standing with her hand upon the velvet back of a great chair, her figure drawn up to its full height and her face immovable. François has flown over to the golden head for supper. He flies on these occasions like an angel or a bird. The baggage of Monsieur is in his room, all is arranged. The supper will be here this moment. These facts, the bald man, notified with bows and smiles, and presently the supper came. The hot dishes were on a chafing dish, the cold already set forth, with the change of service on a sideboard. Monsieur was satisfied with this arrangement. The supper table, being small, it pleased him very well. Let them set the chafing dish upon the floor and go. He would remove the dishes with his own hands. Pardon, said the bald man politely. It was impossible. Monsieur was of another opinion. He required no further attendance that night. But Madame, the bald man hinted. Madame, replied Monsieur, had her own made. It was enough. A million pardons. No, Madame had no made. I came here alone, said Edith. It was my choice to do so. I am well used to traveling. I want no attendance. They need send nobody to me. Monsieur, accordingly, persevering in his first proposed impossibility, proceeded to follow the two attendants to the outer door and secured after them for the night. The bald man, turning round to bow, as he went out, observed that Madame still stood with her hand upon the velvet back of the great chair, and that her face was quite regardless of him, though she was looking straight before her. As the sound of carcass fastening the door resounded through the intermediate rooms and seemed to come hushed and stifled into that last distant one, the sound of the cathedral clock striking 12 mingled with it in Edith's ears. She heard him pause as if he heard it too and listened. And then came back towards her, laying a long train of footsteps through the silence and shutting all the doors behind him as he came along. Her hand for a moment left the velvet chair to bring a knife within her reach upon the table. Then she stood as she had stood before. How strange to come here by yourself, my love, he said as he entered. What, she returned? Her tone was so harsh, the quick turn of her head so fierce, her attitude so repellent, and her frown so black that he stood with the lamp in his hand looking at her as if she had struck him motionless. I say, he at length repeated, putting down the lamp and smiling his most courtly smile, how strange to come here alone. It was unnecessary caution, surely, and might have defeated itself. You were to have engaged an attendant at Chavre or Rouen, and have had abundance of time for the purpose, though you have been the most capricious and difficult, as you are the most beautiful, my love, of women. Her eyes gleamed strangely on him, but she stood with her hand, rested on the chair, and said not a word. I have never, resumed Corker, seen you look so handsome as you do tonight. Even the picture I have carried in my mind during this cruel probation and which I have contemplated night and day is exceeded by the reality. Not a word, not a look. Her eyes completely hidden by their drooping lashes, but her head held up. Hard, unrelenting terms they were, said Corker with a smile, but they are all fulfilled and passed and make the present more delicious and more safe. Sicily shall be the place of our retreat. In the idlest and easiest part of the world, my soul, will both seek compensation for old slavery. He was coming gaily towards her, when in an instant she caught the knife up from the table and started one pace back. Stand still, she said, or I shall murder you. The sudden change in her, the towering fury and intense abhorrence sparkling in her eyes and lighting up her brow made him stop as if a fire had stopped him. Stand still, she said, come no nearer me upon your life. They both stood looking at each other, rage and astonishment were in his face, but he controlled them and said lightly, come, come, touch, we are alone and out of everybody's sight and hearing. Do you think to frighten me with these tricks of virtue? Do you think to frighten me? She answered fiercely, from any purpose that I have and any course I am resolved upon by reminding me of the solitude of this place and there being no help near. Me, who am here alone, designedly, if I feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here in the dead of night telling you to your face what I am going to tell? And what is that, he said, you handsome shrew, handsomer so than any other woman in her best humor. I tell you nothing, she returned until you go back to that chair, except this once again, don't come near me. Not a step nearer I tell you, if you do as heaven sees us, I shall murder you. Do you mistake me for your husband, he retorted with a grin? Distaining to reply, she stretched her arm out, pointing to the chair. He bit his lip, frowned, laughed and sat down in it with a baffled, irresolute, impatient air, he was unable to conceal, and biting his nail nervously and looking at her sideways with bitter discomforture even while he feigned to be amused by her caprice. She put the knife down upon the table and touching her bosom with her hand said, I have something lying here that is no love trinket and sooner than indoor your touch once more I would use it on you and you know it while I speak with less reluctance than I would on any other creeping thing that lives. He affected to laugh jestingly and didn't treated her to act her play out quickly for the supper was growing cold, but the secret look with which he regarded her was more sullen and lowering and he struck his foot once upon the floor with a muttered oath. How many times said Edith, bending her darkest glance upon him, has your bold navery assailed me with outrage and insult? How many times in your smooth manner and mocking words and looks have I been twitted with my courtship and my marriage? How many times have you laid bare my wound of love for that sweet injured girl and lacerated it? How often have you fanned the fire on which for two years I have writhed and tempted me to take a desperate revenge when it has most tortured me? I have no doubt, madam, he replied, that you have kept a good account and that it's pretty accurate. Come, Edith, to your husband, poor wretch, this was well enough. Why if, she said, surveying him with a haughty contempt and disgust that he shrunk under, let him brave it as he would? If all my other reasons for despising him could have blown away like feathers, his having you for his counselor and favorite would have almost been enough to hold their place. Is that a reason why you have run away with me? He asked her tauntingly. Yes, and why we are face to face for the last time. Wretch, we meet tonight and part tonight for not one moment after I have ceased to speak will I stay here? He turned upon her with his ugliest look and gripped the table with his hand, but neither rose nor otherwise answered or threatened her. I am a woman, she said, confronting him steadfastly, who from her very childhood has been shamed and steeled. I have been offered and rejected, put up and appraised until my very soul has sickened. I have not had an accomplishment or grace that might have been a resource to me, but it has been paraded and vended to enhance my value as if the common crier had called it through the streets. My poor proud friends have looked on and approved and every tie between us has been deadened in my breast. There is not one of them for which I care as I could care for a pet dog. I stand alone in the world, remembering well what a hollow world it has been to me and what a hollow part of it I have been myself. You know this and you know that my fame with it is worthless to me. Yes, I imagined that, he said. And calculated on it, she rejoined, and so pursued me, grown too indifferent for any opposition but indifference to the daily working of the hands that had molded me to this and knowing that my marriage would at least prevent their hawking of me up and down. I suffered myself to be sold as infamously as any woman with a halt around her neck is sold in any marketplace. You know that. Yes, he said, showing all his teeth. I know that. And calculated on it, she rejoined once more, and so pursued me. From my marriage day, I found myself exposed to such new shame, to such solicitation and pursuit, expressed as clearly as if it had been written in the coarsest words and thrust into my hand at every turn from one mean villain that I felt as if I had never known humiliation till that time. This shame my husband fixed upon me, hemmed me round with himself, steeped me in with his own hands and of his own act repeated hundreds of times and thus forced by the two from every point of rest I had, forced by the two to yield up the last retreat of love and gentleness within me or to be a new misfortune on its innocent object, driven from each to each and beset by one when I escaped the other, my anger rose almost to distraction against both. I do not know against which it rose higher, the master or the man. He watched her closely as she stood before him in the very triumph of her indignant beauty. She was resolute, he saw, undauntable with no more fear of him than of a worm. What should I say of honor or of chastity to you? She went on. What meaning would it have to you? What meaning would it have from me? But if I tell you that the lightest touch of your hand makes my blood cold with antipathy, that from the hour when I first saw and hated you to now, when my instinctive repugnance is enhanced by every minute's knowledge of you, I have since had you have been a loathsome creature to me which has not its like on earth. How then? He answered with a faint laugh. I, how then, my queen? On that night when emboldened by the scene you had assisted at, you dared come to my room and speak to me, she said. What past? He shrugged his shoulders and laughed again. What past, she said? Your memory is so distinct, he returned, that I have no doubt you can recall it. I can, she said. Hear it, proposing then this flight, not this flight, but the flight you thought it. You told me that in the having given you that meeting and leaving you to be discovered there, if you so thought fit and in the having suffered, you to be alone with me many times before and having made the opportunities, you said, and in the having openly avowed to you that I had no feeling for my husband but aversion and no care for myself, I was lost. I had given you the power to produce my name and I lived in virtuous reputation at the pleasure of your breath. All stratagems in love, he interrupted, smiling, the old adage. On that night, said Edith, and then the struggle that I long had had with something that was not respect for my good fame, that was I know not what. Perhaps the clinging to that last retreat was ended. On that night, and then, I turned from everything but passion and resentment, I struck a blow that laid your lofty master in the dust and set you there before me, looking at me now and knowing what I mean. He sprung up from his chair with a great oath. She put her hand into her bosom and not a finger trembled, not a hair upon her head was stirred. He stood still, she too, the table and chair between them. When I forgot that this man put his lips to mine that night and held me in his arms as he had done again tonight, said Edith, pointing at him. When I forget the taint of his kiss upon my cheek, the cheek that Florence would have laid her guiltless face against, when I forget my meeting with her while the taint was hot upon me and in what a flood the knowledge rushed upon me when I saw her, that in releasing her from the persecution I had caused by my love, I brought a shame and degradation on her name through mine and in all time to come should be the solitary figure representing in her mind her first avoidance of a guilty creature. Then husband from whom I stand divorced, henceforth, I will forget these last two years and undo what I have done and undeceive you. Her flashing eyes uplifted for a moment, lighted again on caulkor and she held some letters out in her left hand. See these, she said contemptuously, you have addressed these to me in the false name you go by, one here, some elsewhere on my road, the seals are unbroken, take them back. She crunched them in her hand and tossed them to his feet and as she looked upon him now, a smile was on her face. We meet and part tonight, she said. You have fallen on Sicilian days and sensual rest too soon. You might have cajoled and fond and played your traitor's part a little longer and grown richer. You purchase your voluptuous retirement, dear. Edith, he retorted, menacing her with his hand, sit down, have done with this, what devil possesses you? Their name is Legion, she replied, uprearing her proud form as if she would have crushed him. You and your master have raised them in a fruitful house and they shall tear you both. False to him, false to his innocent child, false every way and everywhere, go forth and boast of me and gnash your teeth for once to know that you are lying. He stood before her muttering and menacing and scowling round as if for something that would help him to conquer her, but with the same indomitable spirit she opposed him without faltering. In every vaunt you make, she said, I have my triumph. I single out in you the meanest man I know, the parasite and tool of the proud tyrant that his wound may go the deeper and may rankle more. Boast and revenge me on him. You know how you came here tonight. You know how you stand cowering there. You see yourself in colors quite as despicable if not as odious as those in which I see you. Boast then and revenge me on yourself. The foam was on his lips, the wet stood on his forehead. If she would have faltered once for only one half moment, he would have pinioned her, but she was as firm as rock and her searching eyes never left him. We don't part, so he said. Do you think I am driveling to let you go in your mad temper? Do you think she answered that I am to be stayed? I'll try, my dear, he said with a ferocious gesture of his head. God's mercy on you if you try coming near me, she replied. And what he said if there are none of these same boasts and vaunts on my part? What if I were to turn to? Come, and his teeth fairly shown again. We must make a treaty of this or I may take some unexpected course. Sit down, sit down. Too late, she cried, with eyes that seemed to sparkle fire. I have thrown my fame and good name to the winds. I have resolved to bear the shame that will attach to me, resolve to know that it attaches falsely, that you know it too, and that he does not, never can and never shall. I'll die and make no sign. For this I am here alone with you at the dead of night. For this I have met you here in a false name as your wife. For this I have been seen here by those men and left here, nothing can save you now. He would have sold his soul to root her in her beauty to the floor and make her arms drop at her sides and have her at his mercy. But he could not look at her and not be afraid of her. He saw a strength within her that was resistless. He saw that she was desperate and that her unquenchable hatred of him would stop at nothing. His eyes followed the hand that was put with such rugged, uncongenial purpose into her white bosom and he thought that if it struck at him and failed, it would strike there just as soon. He did not venture, therefore, to advance toward her, but the door by which he had entered was behind him and he stepped back to lock it. Lastly, take my warning, look to yourself, she said and smiled again. You have been betrayed as all betrayers are. It has been made known that you are in this place or were to be or have been. If I live, I saw my husband in a carriage in the street tonight. Strumpe it, it's false, cried Parker. At the moment the bell rang loudly in the hall, he turned white as she held her hand up like an enchantress at whose invocation the sound had come. Hark, do you hear it? He set his back against the door, for he saw a change in her and fancied she was coming on to pass him. But in a moment she was gone through the opposite doors communicating with the bedchamber and they shut upon her. Once turned, once changed in her inflexible, unyielding look, he felt that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror occasioned by this night alarm had subdued her, not the less readily, for her overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors he followed almost instantly. But the room was dark and as she made no answer to his call he was feigned to go back for the lamp. He held it up and looked round everywhere expecting to see her crouching in some corner, but the room was empty. So into the drawing room and dining room he went in succession with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place, looking fearfully about and prying behind screens and couches, but she was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he could see that at a glance. All this time the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed and those without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a distance and going near it listened. There were several voices talking together, at least two of them in English, and though the door was thick and there was great confusion, he knew one of these too well to doubt whose voice it was. He took up his lamp again and came back quickly through all the rooms, stopping as he quitted each and looking round for her with a light raised above his head. He was standing thus in the bed-chamber when the door, leading to the little passage in the wall, caught his eye. He went to it and found it fastened on the other side, but she had dropped a veil in going through and shut it in the door. All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell and knocking with their hands and feet. He was not a coward, but these sounds what had gone before, the strangeness of the place which had confused him, even in his return from the hall, the frustration of his scheme, for, strange to say, he would have been much bolder if they had succeeded. The unseasonable time, the recollection of having no one near to whom he could appeal for any friendly office. Above all, the sudden sense which made even his heart beat like lead that the man whose confidence he had outraged and whom he had so treacherously deceived was there to recognize and challenge him with his mask plucked off his face, struck a panic through him. He tried the door in which the veil was shut but couldn't force it. He opened one of the windows and looked down through the lattice of the blind into the courtyard, but it was a high leap and the stones were pitiless. The ringing and knocking still continuing, his panic too. He went back to the door in the bed chamber and with some new efforts, each more stubborn than the last, wrenched it open. Seeing the little staircase not far off and feeling the night air coming up, he stole back for his hat and coat, made the door as secure after him as he could, crept down lamp in hand, extinguished it on seeing the street and having put it in a corner, went out where the stars were shining. End of chapter 54. Chapter 55 of Dombe and Son. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dombe and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter 55. Rob the Grinder loses his place. The porter at the iron gate which shut the courtyard from the street had left the little wicket of his house open and was gone away. No doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the great staircase. Lifting the latch softly, Parker crept out and shutting the jangling gate after him with as little as noise possible. Hurried off. In the fever of his mortification and unavailing rage, the panic that had seized upon him mastered him completely. It rose to such a height that he would have blindly encountered almost any risk rather than meet the man of whom two hours ago he had been utterly regardless. His fierce arrival, which he had never expected, the sound of his voice there having been so near a meeting face to face, he would have braved out this after the first momentary shock of alarm and would have put as bold a front upon his guilt as any villain. But the springing of his mind upon himself seemed to have rent and shivered all his hardy-hood and self-reliance. Spurned like any reptile, entrapped and mocked, turned upon and trodden down by the proud woman whose mind he had slowly poisoned as he thought until she had sunk into the mere creature of his pleasure, undeceived in his deceit, and with his fox's hide stripped off, he sneaked away, abashed, degraded and afraid. Some other terror came upon him quite removed from this of being pursued suddenly like an electric shock as he was creeping through the streets. Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable, associated with a trembling of the ground, a rush and sweep of something through the air like death upon the wing. He shrunk as if to let the thing go by. It was not gone. It never had been there. Yet what a startling horror it had left behind. He raised his wicked face so full of trouble to the night sky where the stars so full of peace were shining on him as they had been when he first stole out into the air and stopped to think what he should do. The dread of being hunted in a strange remote place where the laws might not protect him. The novelty of the feeling that it was strange and remote, originating in his being left alone so suddenly amid the runes of his plans. His greater dread of seeking refuge now in Italy or in Sicily where men might be hired to assassinate him, he thought, at any dark street corner. The waywardness of guilt and fear, perhaps some sympathy of action with the turning back of all his schemes, impelled him to turn back to and go to England. I am safer there in any case if I should not decide, he thought, to give this fool a meeting. I am less likely to be traced there than abroad here now. And if I should, this cursed fit being over, at least I shall not be alone without a soul to speak to or advise with or stand by me, I shall not be run in upon and worried like a rat. He muttered Edith's name and clenched his hand. As he crept along in the shadow of the massive buildings he set his teeth and muttered dreadful implications on her head and looked from side to side as if in search of her. Thus he stole onto the gate of an in-yard. The people were a bed but his ringing at the bell soon produced a man with a lantern in company with which he was presently in a dim coach-house bargaining for the hire of an old faton to Paris. The bargain was a short one and the horses were soon sent for. Leaving word that the carriage was to follow him when they came he stole away again beyond the town past the old ramparts out on the open road which seemed to glide away along the dark plain like a stream. What did it flow? What was the end of it? As he paused with some such suggestion within him looking over the gloomy flat where the slender trees marked out the way again that flight of death came rushing up again went on impetuous and resistless again was nothing but a horror in his mind dark as the scene and undefined as its remotest verge. In the wind there was no passing shadow on the deep shade of the night there was no noise the city lay behind him lighted here and there and starry worlds were hidden by the masonry of spire and roof that hardly made out any shapes against the sky. Dark and lonely distance lay around him everywhere and the clocks were faintly striking too. He went forward for what appeared a long time and a long way often stopping to listen at last the ringing of horse's bells greeted his anxious ears now softer and now louder now inaudible now ringing very slowly over bad ground now brisk and merry it came on until with a loud shouting and lashing a pustillion muffled to the eyes checked his four struggling horses at his side who goes there, monsieur? yes? monsieur has walked a long way in the dark midnight no matter everyone to his taste were there any other horses ordered at the post house? a thousand devils and pardons other horses at this hour? no listen my friend I am much hurried let me see how fast we can travel the faster the more money there will be to drink off we go then quick hello whoop hello hi away at the gallop over the black landscape scattering the dust and dirt like spray the clatter and commotion echoed to the hurry and discordance of the fugitives ideas nothing clear without and nothing clear within objects flitting past merging into one another dimly described confusedly lost sight of gone beyond the changing scraps of fence and cottage immediately upon the road a lowering waste beyond the shifting images that rose up in his mind and vanished as they showed themselves a black expanse of dread and rage and baffled villainy occasionally a sight of mountain air came from the distant Jura fading along the plane sometimes that rush which was so furious and horrible came sweeping through his fancy passed away and left a chill upon his blood the lamps gleaming on the medley of horses' heads jumbled with the shadowy driver and the fluttering of his cloak made a thousand indistinct shapes answered to his thoughts shadows of familiar people stooping at their desks and books in their remembered attitudes strange apparitions of the man whom he was flying from or of Edith repetitions in the ringing bells and rolling wheels of words that had been spoken confusions of time and place making the last night a month ago a month ago last night now distant beyond hope now instantly accessible commotion, discord hurry, darkness and confusion in his mind all around him hello, hi away at a gallop over the black landscape dust and dirt flying like spray the smoking horses snorting and plunging as if each of them were ridden by a demon away in a frantic triumph on the dark road wither again the nameless shock comes speeding up and as it passes the bells ring in his ears wither the wheels roar in his ears wither all the noise and rattle shapes itself into that cry the lights and shadows dance upon the horses' head like imps no stopping now no slackening on, on away with him upon the dark road wildly he could not think to any purpose he could not separate one subject of reflection from another sufficiently to dwell upon it by itself for a minute at a time the clash of his project for the gaining of a voluptuous compensation for past restraint the overthrow of his treachery to one who had been true and generous to him but whose least proud word and look he had treasured up at interest for years for false and subtle men will always secretly despise and dislike the object upon which they fawn and always resent the payment and receipt of homage that they know to be worthless these were the themes uppermost in his mind a lurking rage against the woman who had so entrapped him and avenged herself was always there crude and misshapen schemes of retaliation upon her floated in his brain but nothing was distinct a hurry and contradiction pervaded all his thoughts even while he was so busy with this fevered ineffectual thinking his one constant idea was that he would postpone reflection until some indefinite time then the old days before the second marriage rose up in his remembrance he thought how jealous he had been of the boy how jealous he had been of the girl how artfully he had kept intruders at a distance and drawn a circle round his dup that none but himself should cross and then he thought had he done all this to be flying now like a scared thief from only the poor dup he could have laid hands upon himself for his cowardice but it was the very shadow of his defeat and could not be separated from it to have his confidence in his own navery so shattered at a blow to be within his own knowledge such a miserable tool was like being paralyzed with an impotent ferocity he raged at Edith and hated Mr. Dombie and hated himself but still he fled and could do nothing else again and again he listened for the sound of wheels behind again and again his fancy heard it coming on louder and louder at last he was so persuaded of this that he cried out stop preferring even the loss of ground to such uncertainty the word soon brought carriage horse's driver all in a heap together across the road the devil cried the driver looking over his shoulder what's the matter? hark what's that? what? that noise ah heaven be quiet cursed brigand to a horse who shook his bells behind is it not another carriage at a gallop? there what's that? miscreant with a pig's head stand still to another horse who bit another, who frightened the other two who plunged and backed there is nothing coming nothing no nothing but the day yonder you are right I think I hear nothing now indeed go on the entangled equipage half-ridden in the reeking cloud from the horses goes on slowly at first for the driver checked unnecessarily in his progress sulkily takes out a pocket knife and puts a new lash to his whip then hello whoop hello hi away more savagely and now the stars faded and the day glimmered and standing in the carriage looking back he could discern the track by which he had come and see that there was no traveller within view on all the heavy expanse and soon it was broad day and the sun began to shine on cornfields and vineyards and solitary labourers risen from the little temporary huts by heaps of stone upon the road were here and there at work repairing the highway or eating bread by and by there were peasants going to their daily labour or to market or lounging at the doors of poor cottages gazing idly at him as he passed and then there was a post yard ankle deep in mud with steaming dung hills and vast outhouses half-ruined and looking on this dainty prospect of an immense old shadeless glaring stone chateau with half its windows blinded and green damp crawling lazily over it from the ballastrated terrace to the tapered tips of the extinguishers upon the turrets gathering up mootily in a corner of the carriage an only intent on going fast except when he stood up for a mile together and looked back what he would do whenever there was a piece of open country he went on still postponing thought indefinitely and still always tormented with thinking to no purpose shame, disappointment and discomforture gnawed at his heart a constant apprehension of being overtaken or met for he was groundlessly afraid even of travelers who came towards him by the way he was going heavily the same intolerable awe and dread that had come upon him in the night returned un-weakened in the day the monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the horses the monotony of his anxiety and useless rage the monotonous wheel of fear, regret and passion he kept turning round and round made the journey like a vision which nothing was quite real but his own torment it was a vision of long roads that stretched away to an horizon always receding and never gained of ill-paved towns uphill and down where faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows and where rows of mud bespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long narrow streets butting and lowing and receiving blows on their blunt heads from bludgeons that might have beaten them in of bridges, crosses, churches, post yards new horses being put in against their wills and the horses of the last stage reeking, panting and laying their drooping heads together dolefully at stable doors of little cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in the graves and withered wreaths upon them dropping away again of long, long roads dragging themselves out uphill and down to the treacherous horizon of morning, noon and sunset night and the rising of an early moon of long roads temporarily left behind and a rough pavement reached of battering and clattering over it and looking up among house roofs at a great church tower of getting out and eating hastily and drinking drafts of wine that had no cheering influence of coming forth a foot among a host of beggars blind men with quivering eyelids led by old women holding candles to their faces idiot girls, the lame, the epileptic and the palsied of passing through the clamour and looking from his seat at the upturned countenances and outstretched hands with a hurried dread of recognizing some pursuer pressing forward of galloping away again upon the long, long road gathered up, dull and stunned in his corner or rising to see where the moon shone faintly on a patch of the same endless road miles away or looking back to see who followed of never sleeping but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes and springing up with a start and a reply allowed to an imaginary voice of cursing himself for being there for having fled for having let her go for not having confronted and defied him of having a deadly quarrel with the whole world but chiefly with himself of blighting everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away it was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded together of his life and journey blended into one of being madly hurried somewhere wither he must go of old scenes starting up among the novelties through which he traveled of musing and brooding over what was past and distant and seeming to take no notice of the actual objects he encountered but with a weary some exhausting consciousness of being bewildered by them and having their images all crowded in his hot brain after they were gone a vision of change upon change and still the same monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet and no rest of town and country post yards, horses drivers hill and valley, light and darkness road and pavement height and hollow wet weather and dry and still the same monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet and no rest a vision of tending on at last towards the distant capital by busier roads and sweeping round by old cathedrals and dashing through small towns and villages less thinly scattered on the road than formally and sitting shrouded in his corner with his cloak up to his face as people passing by looked at him of rolling on and on always postponing thought and always racked with thinking of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon the road or to comprehend the points of time and place in his journey of being parched and giddy and half mad of pressing on in spite of all as if he could not stop and coming into Paris where the Turbid River held its swift course undisturbed between two brawling streams of life and motion a troubled vision then of bridges, caves interminable streets of wine shops, water carriers great crowds of people, soldiers, coaches military drums, arcades of the monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet being at length lost in the universal din and uproar of the gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another carriage by a different barrier and that by which he had entered of the restoration as he travelled on towards the sea coast of the monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet and no rest of sunset once again and nightfall of long roads again and dead of night and feeble lights in windows by the roadside and still the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet and no rest dawn and daybreak and the rising of the sun of toiling slowly up a hill and feeling on its top the fresh sea breeze and seeing the morning light upon the edges of the distant waves of coming down into a harbour when the tide was at its full and seeing fishing boats float on and glad women and children waiting for them of nets and seamen's clothes spread out to dry upon the shore of busy sailors and their voices high among ships' masts and rigging of the buoyancy and brightness of the water and the universal sparkling of receding from the coast and looking back upon it from the deck when it was a haze upon the water with here and there a little opening of bright land where the sun struck of the swell and flash and murmur of the calm sea of another grey line on the ocean on the vessel's track fast growing clearer and higher of cliffs and buildings and a windmill and a church becoming more and more visible upon it of steaming on at last into smooth water and mooring to appear whence groups of people look down and friends on board of disembarking passing among them quickly shunning everyone and of being at last again in England he had thought in his dream of going down into a remote country place he knew and lying quiet there while he secretly informed himself of what transpired and determined how to act still in the same stunned condition he remembered a certain station on the railway where he would have to branch off to his place of destination and where there was a quiet inn here he indistinctly revolved to tarry and rest with this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he could and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep he was born far away from the sea and deep into the inland green arrived at his destination he looked out and surveyed it carefully he was not mistaken in his impression of the place it was a retired spot on the borders of a little wood only one house newly built or altered for the purpose stood there surrounded by its neat garden the small town that was nearest was some miles away here he alighted then and going straight into the tavern unobserved by anyone secured two rooms upstairs communicating with each other sufficiently retired his object was to rest and recover the command of himself and the balance of his mind imbecile discomforture and rage so that as he walked about his room crowned his teeth had complete possession of him his thoughts not to be stopped or directed still wondered where they would and dragged him after them he was stupefied and he was weary to death but as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest again his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness he had no more influence with them in this regard then if they had been in other mans it was not that they forced him to take note of present sounds and objects but that they would not be diverted from the whole hurried vision of his journey it was constantly before him all at once she stood there with her dark disdainful eyes again upon him and he was riding on nevertheless in the country light and darkness wet weather and dry over road and pavement hill and valley height and hollow jaded and scared by the monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet and no rest what day is this he asked of the waiter who was making preparations for his dinner day sir is it wednesday wednesday sir no sir thursday sir close the time my watch is unwound once a few minutes to five o'clock sir been traveling a long time sir perhaps yes by rail sir yes very confusing sir not much in the habit of traveling by rail myself sir but gentlemen frequently say so do many gentlemen come here pretty well sir in general nobody here at present rather slack just now sir everything is slack sir he made no answer but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa where he had been lying and leaned forward with an arm on each knee staring at the ground he could not master his own attention for a minute together it rushed away where it would but it never for an instant lost itself in sleep he drank a quantity of wine after dinner in vain no such artificial means would bring sleep to his eyes his thoughts more incoherent dragged him more unmercifully after them as if a wretch condemned to such expiation were drawn at the heels of wild horses no oblivion and no rest how long he sat drinking and brooding and being dragged in imagination hither and thither no one could have told less correctly than he but he knew that he had been sitting a long time by candlelight when he started up and listened in a sudden terror for now indeed it was no fancy the ground shook the house rattled the fierce impetuous rush was in the air he felt it come up and go darting by and saw what it was he stood shrinking from it as if it were not safe to look a curse upon the fiery devil thundering along so smoothly tracked through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke and gone he felt as if he had been plucked out of its path and saved from being torn asunder it made him shrink and shudder even now the faintest hum was hushed and when the lines of iron road he could trace in the moonlight running to a point where as empty and as silent as a desert unable to rest and irresistibly attracted or he thought so to this road he went out and lounged on the brink of it marking the way the train had gone by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in its track under a lounge of some half hour in the direction by which it had disappeared he turned and walked the other way still keeping to the brink of the road past the in-garden looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps and wondering when another devil would come by a trembling of the ground and quick vibration in his ears a distant shriek, a dull light quickly changed to two red eyes and a fierce fire dropping glowing coals an irresistible bearing on of a great roaring and dilating mass a high wind and a rattle another come and gone and he holding to a gate as if to save himself he waited for another and for another he walked back to his former point again to that and still through the wearisome vision of his journey looked for these approaching monsters he loitered about the station waiting until one should stay to call there and when one did and was detached for water he stood parallel with it watching its heavy wheels and brazen front and thinking what a cruel power and might it had to see the great wheels slowly turning and to think of being run down and crushed disordered with wine and want of rest that want which nothing although he was so weary would appease these ideas and objects assumed a diseased importance in his thoughts when he went back to his room which was not until near midnight they still haunted him and he sat listening for the coming of another though in his bed wither he repaired with no hope of sleep he lay still listening and when he felt the trembling and vibration got up and went to the window to watch as he could from its position the dull light changing to the two red eyes and the fierce fire dropping glowing coals and the rush of the giant as it fled past with both glare and smoke along the valley then he would glance in the direction by which he intended to depart at sunrise as there was no rest for him there and would lie down again to be troubled by the vision of his journey and the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses feet until another came this lasted all night so far from resuming the mastery he seemed if possible to lose it more and more as the night crept on when the dawn appeared he was still tormented with thinking still postponing thought until he should be in a better state the past present and future all floated confusedly before him and he had lost all power of looking steadily at any one of them at what time he asked the man who had waited on on him overnight now entering with a candle do I leave here did you say about a quarter after four sir express comes through at four sir it don't stop he passed his hand across his throbbing head and looked at his watch nearly half past three nobody going with you sir probably observed the man two gentlemen here sir what they're waiting for the train to London I thought you said there was nobody here said carker turning upon him with a ghost of his old smile when he was angry or suspicious not then sir two gentlemen came in the night by the short train that stops here sir warm water sir no and take away the candle there's day enough for me having thrown himself upon the bed half dressed he was at the window the man left the room the cold light of morning had succeeded tonight and there was already in the sky the red suffusion of the coming sun he bathed his head in face with water there was no cooling influence in it for him hurriedly put on his clothes paid what he owed and went out the air struck chill and comfortless as it breathed upon him what he do and hot as he was it made him shiver after a glance at the place where he had walked last night and at the signal lights burning feebly in the morning and bereft of their significance he turned to where the sun was rising and beheld it in its glory as it broke upon the scene so awful so transcendent in its beauty so divinely solemn as he cast his faded eyes upon it where it rose tranquil and serene unmoved by all the wrong and wickedness on which its beams had shown since the beginning of the world who shall say that some weak sense of virtue upon earth and its reward in heaven did not manifest itself even to him if ever he remembered sister with a touch of tenderness and remorse who shall say it was not then he needed some such touch then death was on him he was marked off from the living world and going down into his grave he paid the money for his journey to the country place he had thought of and was walking to and fro alone looking along the lines of iron across the valley in one direction and towards a dark bridge near at hand in the other when turning in his walk where it was bounded by one end of the wooden stage on which he paced up and down he saw the man from whom he had fled emerging from the door by which he himself had entered there and their eyes met in the quick unsteadiness of the surprise he staggered and slipped onto the road below him but recovering his feet immediately he stepped back a pace or two upon that road to interpose some wider space between them and looked at his pursuer breathing short and quick he heard a shout another saw the face change from its vindictive passion to a faint sickness and terror felt the earth tremble knew in a moment that the rush was come uttered a shriek looked round saw the red eyes bleared and dim in the daylight close upon him was beaten down caught up and whirled away upon a jagged mill that spun him round and round and struck him limb from limb stream of life up with its fiery heat and cast his mutilated fragments in the air when the traveler who had been recognized recovered from a swoon he saw them bringing from a distance something covered that lay heavy and still upon a board between four men and saw that others drove some dogs away and soaked his blood up with a train of ashes End of Chapter 55