He sat thus for a long time,
his elbows on the table, his chin between his hands, till at length the
contemplation of the abandoned sidewalks, above which the electric globes
kept Stylites-like vigil, became intolerable to him, and he drew down the
window-shade, and lit the gas-fixture beside the dressing-table. Then he
took a cigar from his case, and held it to the flame.
The passage from the stinging freshness of the night to the stale
overheated atmosphere of the Haslemere Hotel had checked the
preternaturally rapid working of his mind, and he was now scarcely
conscious of thinking at all. His head was heavy, and he would have thrown
himself on the bed had he not feared to oversleep the hour fixed for his
departure. He thought it safest, instead, to seat himself once more by the
table, in the most uncomfortable chair that he could find, and smoke one
cigar after another till the first sign of dawn should give an excuse for
action.
He had laid his watch on the table before him, and was gazing at the hour-
hand, and trying to convince himself by so doing that he was still wide
awake, when a noise in the adjoining room suddenly straightened him in his
chair and banished all fear of sleep.
There was no mistaking the nature of the noise; it was that of a woman's
sobs. The sobs were not loud, but the sound reached him distinctly through
the frail door between the two rooms; it expressed an utter abandonment to
grief; not the cloud-burst of some passing emotion, but the slow down-pour
of a whole heaven of sorrow.
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