He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water, striking his head with his hands and crying out, “Oh, this is fearful, fearful!  What have I done now?  I have killed her; yes, and worse!”

He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him.  What a weight of responsibility to carry—­he who hated responsibility of any kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!

At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had done.  Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck.  There could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were spoiled and rendered impossible.  The rest of his life would have to be one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime seem more abominable.

Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him to this thing.

Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.

Now, it was a terror for himself.  What would they do to him?  His part in the affair was sure to be found out.  He tried to think what the punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a murderer as well?  Could he not hang for this?  His imagination was never more active; his fear never more keen.  At once a thousand plans of concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.

But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no matter how it was palliated or evaded here.  Then for an instant it was as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation.  To look too long in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.

And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all straight and trickling with moisture.  At times an immense unreasoning terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in the throes of terrible mental agony.