But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling
in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other
side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and
the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately,
how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices!
Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his
mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images; church-going
children and the pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers
by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-flyers in the
windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the
hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and
the high, genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to
recall), and the painted Jacobean[17] tombs, and the dim lettering of
the Ten Commandments in the chancel.
And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his
feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went
over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted
the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the
knob, and the lock clicked, and the door opened.
Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the
dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some
chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows.
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