Not the gibbering of ghosts in any old haunted house; no sulphurous and portentous sign at night beheld in heaven, will so make the hair to stand, as when a proud and honorable man is revolving in his soul the possibilities of some gross public and corporeal disgrace. It is not fear; it is a pride-horror, which is more terrible than any fear. Then, by tremendous imagery, the murderer's mark of Cain is felt burning on the brow, and the already acquitted knife blood-rusts in the clutch of the anticipating hand.
Certain that those two youths must be plotting something furious against him; with the echoes of their scorning curses on the stairs still ringing in his ears--curses, whose swift responses from himself, he, at the time, had had much ado to check;--thoroughly alive to the supernatura
