Wolf was tempted to rest for a while, so as to gather into some kind of focus the confused impressions of that crowded afternoon; but he found, when he paused for a moment, leaning over a gate, that the dew-wet herbage brought to his mind nothing but one persistent image, an image calm and peaceful enough, but full of a most perilous relaxation of heart and will and spirit⁠—the image, in fact, of a young man lying dead in a bedroom at Pond Cottage, a young man with a shrouded face, and long, thin legs. Who was it who had told him that young Redfern was tall and thin?

He moved on, with a wave of his stick, as if to dispel this phantom; and it was not long before the first houses of Blacksod began to appear, some of them with windows already displaying lamplight, which mingled queerly enough with the strange luminosity such as still emanated from earth and sky. Wolf noted how different such spots of artificial light appeared, when they thus remained mere specks of yellow colour surrounded by pale greyness, from what they would be in a brief while, when they broke up the complete darkness.