Page:The Saint (1906, G. P. Putnam's Sons).djvu/147

had enveloped him, and cooled its ardour. He soon perceived this and was seized with a heavy sense of regret, with impatience to rekindle the flame, enhanced by the fear of not succeeding in the attempt, by the feeling that it Jiad been his own fault, and by the memory of other barren moments. He was growing colder, ever colder. He fell upon his knees, calling upon God in an outburst of prayer. Like a small flame applied in vain to a bundle of green sticks, this effort of his will gradually weakened without having moved the sluggish heart, and left him at last in vague contemplation of the even roar of the Anio. His senses returned to him with a rush of terror! Perhaps the whole night would pass thus; perhaps this barren coldness would be followed by burning temptation! He silenced the clamour of his fervid imagination, and concentrated his thoughts on his determination not to lose courage. He now became firmly convinced that hostile spirits had seized upon him. He would not have felt more sure of this had he seen fiendish eyes flashing in the crevices of the neighbouring rocks. He felt conscious of poisonous vapours within him; he felt the absence of all love, the absence of all sorrow; he felt weariness, a great weight, the advance of a mortal drowsiness. Once more he fell into stupid contemplation of the noise of the river, and fixed his unseeing eyes upon the dark woods of the Francolano. Before his mental