The place was not more composed than himself; the flame was the noisiest
in the world; it crackled and crashed and made horrible shadows on the
walls. There were rats under the floor whose gnawings were like human
speech, and the old house appeared to settle now and then with a groan
as if unwilling to shelter guilt. As he looked down upon the clustering
roofs of the town they seemed wonderfully like a crowd of people gazing
up at his retreat. All the dormer-windows were so many pitiless eyes,
and the chimney-pots were guns and cannon to batter down his eyrie.
When night fell upon the city and sea, his fancies were not less
alarming. He could not rid himself of the idea that the dead man was at
his side. In vain he called upon his victim to appear, and laughed till
the windows shook. It was there, _there_, always THERE! He did not see
it--but it was _there_! He felt its breath, its eye, its influence. It
leaned across his shoulder; it gossiped with the shadows; it laid its
hand heavily upon his pocket where lay the unholy gold. Some prints of
saints and the Virgin upon the wall troubled him; their faces followed
him wherever he turned; he tore them down at length, and tossed them in
the fire, but they blazed with so great flame that he cried out for
fear.
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