stiffen as the still heavier load rolled upon them. But his mind also must be strong.
He was almost mad with thinking on his course, with trying to reason out some Northwest Passage for his conscience. Every eventuality had been considered, every resulting good or injury taken into account. When he did sleep, dreams had come to him—horrible, portending dreams that lingered into wakefulness and filled the hours with vague, tissue-weakening dread. He knew the meaning of this. His brain was so wearied with thinking of the perplexities which bristled round him that the very processes of thought had begun to operate less surely. Conclusions that should have stood out sharp and clear became blurred. Doubts and indecisions clamored round him. Things settled and settled right came trooping back to demand realignment. This alarmed him more than anything else,—the fear that the course he had chosen and which he knew to be right, might seem, in some moment when his mind passed into a fog, the wrong course; and he would falter not for lack of will but because of the maiming of his judgment.
He longed for counsel, to talk intimately with some one, but was afraid, afraid he might get the wrong advice and follow it. The loyalty of Rose, the judgment of the Angel of the Chair, he trusted; but himself he began to mistrust. Mistrusting himself, he dared not talk at all, lest he either exhibit signs of weakness that would frighten Rose, or lest, in that weakness, he confess too much to Mrs. Burbeck.
One fear like this and one alarm acted to produce another until something like panic grew up in his soul. A small onyx clock was on the mantel. The hands pointed to one—and then to two—and to three. At eight he must go to the church and see himself accused by those whom he loved, and for whom he had labored.
