He moved out to the foot of the staircase, and, with his hand upon the bannister, stood motionless, lost in strange thoughts. These glimpses of certain fixed objects, seen daily, yet always differently, through bedroom-windows, scullery-windows, privy-windows, had, from his childhood, possessed a curious interest for him. It was as if he got from them a sort of runic handwriting, the “little language” of Chance itself, commenting upon what was, and is, and was to come. As he stood there, he could hear Gerda moving about upstairs, and he hesitated as to whether to run up and speak to her, or to go out, as he generally did, without further farewell.

He decided finally upon the latter course; something at the bottom of his mind, just then, making anything else seem strained and unnatural. Snatching up his oak-stick, therefore, he let himself out of the house with deliberate quietness, and walked with rapid steps down the road.