"But, no, I'm wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of! And yet, suppose he met his death!"
And immediately pictures unrolled themselves before his mind in endless succession.
He saw himself with her at night in a post-chaise, then on a river's bank on a summer's evening, and under the reflection of a lamp at home in their own house. He even fixed his attention on household expenses and domestic arrangements, contemplating, feeling already his happiness between his hands; and in order to realise it, all that was needed was that the c**k of the g*n should rise. The end of it could be pushed with one's toe, the g*n would go off—it would be a mere accident—nothing more!
Frederick brooded over this idea like a playwright in the agonies of composition. Suddenly it seemed to him that it was not
