“I don’t know. I can’t keep it back. It has happened twice⁠—three times⁠—four times⁠—I don’t know how many times⁠—since last night. I taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out like this.”

He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending low over the river, and scooping up the water with his two hands, washed the blood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door, was a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of the heavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from head to foot, but with the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river, streaming water.

“Your face is like a ghost’s,” said Riderhood.

“Did you ever see a ghost?” was the sullen retort.

“I mean to say, you’re quite wore out.”

“That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I don’t remember that I have so much as sat down since I left here.”