Whether he went in very deed out with him into the night, he did not
know--he felt as if he had gone, and thought he had not--but when he
woke the next morning in his bed at the top of the tower, which he
had no recollection of climbing, he was as weary as if he had been
walking the night through.
CHAPTER XXXI.
BEWILDERMENT.
His first thought was of a long and delightful journey he had made
on horseback with the earl--through scenes of entrancing interest
and variety,--with the present result of a strange weariness, almost
misery. What had befallen him? Was the thing a fact or a fancy? If a
fancy, how was he so weary? If a fact, how could it have been? Had
he in any way been the earl's companion through such a long night as
it seemed? Could they have visited all the places whose remembrance
lingered in his brain? He was so confused, so bewildered, so haunted
with a shadowy uneasiness almost like remorse, that he even dreaded
the discovery of the cause of it all. Might a man so lose hold of
himself as to be no more certain he had ever possessed or could ever
possess himself again?
He bethought himself at last that he might perhaps have taken more
wine than his head could stand. Yet he remembered leaving his glass
unemptied to follow the earl; and it was some time after that before
the change came! Could it have been drunkenness? Had it been slowly
coming without his knowing it? He could hardly believe it? But
whatever it was, it had left him unhappy, almost ashamed.
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