A Group

This conviction now began to haunt my mind with all the punctuality
of a shadow. It came to me unconsciously, uncalled for; mingled
with other thoughts and disturbed them all. Whether at my desk, or
in the courts; among men in the crowded mart, or in places simply
where the idle and the thoughtless congregate, it was still my
companion. It was, however, still a shadow only; a dull, intangible,
half-formed image of the mind; the crude creature of a fear rather
than a desire; for, of a truth, nothing could be more really
terrible to me than the apparent necessity of taking the life of
one so dear to me once, and still so dear to the only friends I had
ever known.

I need not say how silently I strove to banish this
conviction. My struggles on this subject were precisely those which
are felt by nervous men suddenly approaching a precipice, and,
though secure, flinging themselves off, in the extremity of their
apprehensions of that danger which has assumed in their imaginations
an aspect so absorbing. With such persons, the extreme anxiety
to avoid the deed, whether of evil or of mere danger, frequently
provokes its commission. I felt that this risk encountered me. I
well knew that an act often contemplated may be already considered
half-performed; and though I could not rid myself of the impression
that I was destined to do the deed the very idea of which made me
shudder, I yet determined, with all the remaining resolution of
my virtue, to dismiss it from my thought, as I resolved to escape
from its performance if I could.