It had sprung as he
didn't guess; it had sprung as she hopelessly turned from him, and
the mark, by the time he left her, had fallen where it WAS to fall.
He had justified his fear and achieved his fate; he had failed,
with the last exactitude, of all he was to fail of; and a moan now
rose to his lips as he remembered she had prayed he mightn't know.
This horror of waking--THIS was knowledge, knowledge under the
breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze.
Through them, none the less, he tried to fix it and hold it; he
kept it there before him so that he might feel the pain. That at
least, belated and bitter, had something of the taste of life. But
the bitterness suddenly sickened him, and it was as if, horribly,
he saw, in the truth, in the cruelty of his image, what had been
appointed and done. He saw the Jungle of his life and saw the
lurking Beast; then, while he looked, perceived it, as by a stir of
the air, rise, huge and hideous, for the leap that was to settle
him. His eyes darkened--it was close; and, instinctively turning,
in his hallucination, to avoid it, he flung himself, face down,
on the tomb.
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