below the bank at that particular place. These things he had remembered when he heard the splash of her fall; and he had also remembered, with a numb sense of terror, that neither he nor Elise could swim. Perhaps she had lost consciousness when she fell: for she had sunk immediately, and had not risen to the surface again. The whole scene was dim and confused in Sylenâs mind, apart from that final glimpse of her face on the shore. His flight from California was vague to him also; and his first clear memory was that of a newspaper he had seen the next morning in a neighboring state, with pictures of Elise and himself above a lurid conjectural description of the crime. The horror of those headlines, in which he seemed to meet the accusing eyes of a vast multitude of people, was branded ineffaceably upon his brain. Henceforth it was a perpetual miracle to him that he could manage to evade arrest. Like most criminals, he felt that the world was pre-occupied with himself and his crime; and did not realize its manifold oblivion, its absorption in multiform pursuits and interests.
He was stunned by the consequences of the deed, by the break that it entailed with his whole past life, with everything and everyone he had known. His flourishing business, the respectable place he had won in his community, his wife and two childrenâall were lost beyond recovery through something which, as he had soon persuaded himself, was no more than a fatal accident. The idea of himself as a fugitive from justice, as a vulgar murderer in the eyes of the world, was alien and confusing to the last degree. He retained enough wit, however, to disguise himself with a touch of subtlety, and to double upon his trail in a manner that baffled the police. He bought some second-hand clothing, of the type that would be worn by a laboring-man, and disposed of his neat tailor-made suit by leaving it at night beneath a pile of old lumber. He allowed his beard to grow, and purchased a pair of heavy-rimmed spectacles. These simple measures transformed him from a well-to-do realtor to a socialistic carpenter out of work. In trying to conceal his furtiveness, his perennial fear of observation, he acquired a rough and fierce air that was quite compatible with the role of a discontented workman.
Sylen was well supplied with money. Even when prolonged security had diminished his fear of arrest, he did not dare to linger in any place. A queer, morbid restlessness impelled him to go on. And always, it seemed to him, there was a willow-bordered river to remind him of the scene of his act; and always there were women who resembled Elise. The mere sight of a stream, or a girl with the fancied likeness, even in one feature or detail of costume, would send him toward the nearest railroad station. He tried not to think of Elise, and sometimes succeeded; but any chance resemblance was too much for his nerves. The damnable frequency of such resemblances became one of his chief worries. He could not account for them as part of the natural order of things.
Often, with apparitional suddenness and irrelevance, he would remember Elise as he had seen her in that last moment, when her face had emerged from the twilight with such preternatural pallor and vividness. Even when he managed to forget her, there was a sense of some troublous haunting in the background of his mind. He developed also a physical feeling that he was not aloneâthat an unseen presence accompanied him wherever he went. But at first he did not connect this feeling with Elise, nor did he associate with her the earliest beginnings of the actual visual hallucination from which he eventually came to suffer.
Sylen was well aware of his growing nervousness, and made desultory efforts to overcome it. He knew, or had been told, that such a condition might lead to insanity. He tried by means of auto-suggestion to dismiss the irrational fears and impressions that dogged him in his wanderings. He felt that he was
He was stunned by the consequences of the deed, by the break that it entailed with his whole past life, with everything and everyone he had known. His flourishing business, the respectable place he had won in his community, his wife and two childrenâall were lost beyond recovery through something which, as he had soon persuaded himself, was no more than a fatal accident. The idea of himself as a fugitive from justice, as a vulgar murderer in the eyes of the world, was alien and confusing to the last degree. He retained enough wit, however, to disguise himself with a touch of subtlety, and to double upon his trail in a manner that baffled the police. He bought some second-hand clothing, of the type that would be worn by a laboring-man, and disposed of his neat tailor-made suit by leaving it at night beneath a pile of old lumber. He allowed his beard to grow, and purchased a pair of heavy-rimmed spectacles. These simple measures transformed him from a well-to-do realtor to a socialistic carpenter out of work. In trying to conceal his furtiveness, his perennial fear of observation, he acquired a rough and fierce air that was quite compatible with the role of a discontented workman.
Sylen was well supplied with money. Even when prolonged security had diminished his fear of arrest, he did not dare to linger in any place. A queer, morbid restlessness impelled him to go on. And always, it seemed to him, there was a willow-bordered river to remind him of the scene of his act; and always there were women who resembled Elise. The mere sight of a stream, or a girl with the fancied likeness, even in one feature or detail of costume, would send him toward the nearest railroad station. He tried not to think of Elise, and sometimes succeeded; but any chance resemblance was too much for his nerves. The damnable frequency of such resemblances became one of his chief worries. He could not account for them as part of the natural order of things.
Often, with apparitional suddenness and irrelevance, he would remember Elise as he had seen her in that last moment, when her face had emerged from the twilight with such preternatural pallor and vividness. Even when he managed to forget her, there was a sense of some troublous haunting in the background of his mind. He developed also a physical feeling that he was not aloneâthat an unseen presence accompanied him wherever he went. But at first he did not connect this feeling with Elise, nor did he associate with her the earliest beginnings of the actual visual hallucination from which he eventually came to suffer.
Sylen was well aware of his growing nervousness, and made desultory efforts to overcome it. He knew, or had been told, that such a condition might lead to insanity. He tried by means of auto-suggestion to dismiss the irrational fears and impressions that dogged him in his wanderings. He felt that he was
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