All that
perturbation of emotion that had before convulsed him he
discovered to have disappeared, and in its stead a benumbed and
blinded intelligence alone remained to him. As he stood in the
presence of this second death, of which he had been as innocent
and as unwilling an instrument as he had of the first, he could
observe no signs either of remorse or of horror within him. He
picked up his hat, which had fallen upon the floor in the first
encounter, and, brushing away the dust with the cuff of his coat
sleeve with extraordinary care, adjusted the beaver upon his head
with the utmost nicety. Then turning, still stupefied as with the
fumes of some powerful drug, he prepared to quit the scene of
tragic terrors that had thus unexpectedly accumulated upon him.
But ere he could put his design into execution his ears were
startled by the sound of loud and hurried footsteps which, coming
from below, ascended the stairs with a prodigious clatter and
bustle of speed. At the landing these footsteps paused for a
while, and then approached, more cautious and deliberate, toward
the room where the double tragedy had been enacted, and where our
hero yet stood silent and inert.
All this while Jonathan made no endeavor to escape, but stood
passive and submissive to what might occur. He felt himself the
victim of circumstances over which he himself had no control.
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