His stupor was broken by a vision that for long hours of that dead night burned in his brain like molten lead. The face which Greta had seen, and which his mother must also have seen, seemed to rise up before him as he sat in that deserted chamber. He saw his own face as he might have seen it in a glass. Not even the blackness of night could conceal it. Clear as a face seen in the day it shone and burned in that dark room. He closed his eyes to shut it out, but it was still before him. It was within him. It was imprinted in features of fire on his brain. He trembled with fear, never until that hour knowing what fear was. It acted upon him like his own ghost.
He knew it was but a phantasy, but no phantasy was ever more horrible. He got up to banish it, and it stood before him face to face. He sunk down again, and it sat beside him eye to eye.
Then it changed. For a moment it faded away into a palpitating mist, and the tension of his gaze relaxed. How blessed was that moment's respite! His thought returned to his mother. "If ever the world should mock you with your mother's name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last." Dear, sacred soul. Little fear that he should forget it! Little fear that the wise world should tarnish the fair shrine of that holy love! Tears of tenderness rose to his eyes, and in the midst of them he thought his mother sat before him. Her head was bent; an all-eating shame was crimsoning her pale cheek. Then he knew that other eyes were upon her, looking into her heart, prying deep down into her dead past, keeping open the heavy eyelids that could never sleep. He looked up; his own shadow was silently gazing down upon both of them.
Paul leaped to his feet and ran out of the room. Surely the spirit of his mother still inhabited the deserted chamber. Surely this was the shadow that had driven her away. Big drops of sweat rolled in beads from his forehead. He went out of the house. Heavy black clouds were adrift in a stormy sky; behind them, the bright moon was scudding.
He walked among the naked trees of the gaunt wood at the foot of Coledale, and listened to the short breathings of the wind among the frost-covered boughs. At every second step he gave a quick glance backward. But at last he saw the thing he looked for--it was walking with him side by side, pace for pace.