'What kind of person is he with whom you COULD be without making him
happy?'
The baritone rose to the upper F with a clash of chords on the piano,
and the company broke up. Frank went home with but one thought in
his head--the thought of Cecilia.
His bedroom faced the south-west, its windows were open, and when he
entered, the wind, which was gradually rising, struck him on the face
and nearly forced the door out of his hand; the fire in his blood was
quenched, and the image of Cecilia receded. He looked out, and saw
reflected on the low clouds the dull glare of the distant city. Just
over there was Great Ormond Street, and underneath that dim, red
light, like the light of a great house burning, was Madge Hopgood.
He lay down, turning over from side to side in the vain hope that by
change of position he might sleep. After about an hour's feverish
tossing, he just lost himself, but not in that oblivion which slumber
usually brought him. He was so far awake that he saw what was around
him, and yet, he was so far released from the control of his reason
that he did not recognise what he saw, and it became part of a new
scene created by his delirium. The full moon, clearing away the
clouds as she moved upwards, had now passed round to the south, and
just caught the white window-curtain farthest from him. He half-
opened his eyes, his mad dream still clung to him, and there was the
dead Madge before him, pale in death, and holding a child in her
arms! He distinctly heard himself scream as he started up in
affright; he could not tell where he was; the spectre faded and the
furniture and hangings transformed themselves into their familiar
reality. He could not lie down again, and rose and dressed himself.
He was not the man to believe that the ghost could be a revelation or
a prophecy, but, nevertheless, he was once more overcome with fear, a
vague dread partly justifiable by the fact of Madge, by the fact that
his father might soon know what had happened, that others also might
know, Cecilia for example, but partly also a fear going beyond all
the facts, and not to be accounted for by them, a strange, horrible
trembling such as men feel in earthquakes when the solid rock shakes,
on which everything rests.