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Ambient Intelligence
Edited by
Félix Jesús Villanueva Molina
In-Tech
intechweb.org

Published by In-Teh
In-Teh
Olajnica 19/2, 32000 Vukovar, Croatia
Abstracting and non-profit use of the material is permitted with credit to the source. Statements and
opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of
the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the
published articles. Publisher assumes no responsibility liability for any damage or injury to persons or
property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained inside. After
this work has been published by the In-Teh, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any
publication of which they are an author or editor, and the make other personal use of the work.
© 2010 In-teh
www.intechweb.org
Additional copies can be obtained from:
publication@intechweb.org
First published March 2010
Printed in India
Technical Editor: Martina Peric
Cover designed by Dino Smrekar
Ambient Intelligence,
Edited by Félix Jesús Villanueva Molina
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-307-078-0

V
Preface
In 2001 ISTAG published “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence in 2010” which describes a set of
scenarios showing the interaction between the users and the information and communication
technologies. We can affirm now and with our actual perspective that maybe they were too
optimistic but the Ambient Intelligence vision described in this document is still valid and
any researcher can take these scenarios as a guideline in his research activity.
We cannot deny that Ambient Intelligence concepts are moving from research labs
demonstrators to our daily lives in a slowly but continuous way. However, we are far from
concluding that our living spaces are intelligent and are enhancing our living style. Ambient
intelligence has attracted much attention from multidisciplinary research areas and there
are still open issues in most of them. In this book we analyze and study a selection of open
problems which we consider the key ones in order to let ambient intelligence become a reality.
We expect that this book provides the reader with a good idea about the current research lines
in ambient intelligence, a good overview of existent works and candidate solutions for each
one of these problems.
Specifically, chapter 1 and 2 are devoted to a recurrent problem in ambient intelligence, the
integration of heterogeneous devices, technologies and services deployed in any scenario
following the ambient intelligence vision. Next, in chapter 3, we focus on indoor localization
technologies in real environments since we have the conviction that more advanced services
can be provided with an exact information about user positions. In the same line, in chapter 4
we present a visual analysis framework of user behavior in ambient intelligence environments.
This type of applications are the seed forenabling service adaptation to the user activity
on real time. In chapter 5 the interactions between the user and the ambient intelligence
environment by means of dialogue systems are analyzed. This type of systems represent the
most natural way of interaction for the users. Finally, ambient intelligence environments will
only be successful as far as they can be trusted by both users and services. Chapter 6 tackle
this problem by modeling properties of trust concept in general computing systems.
Each one of these chapters have been written and revised by experts in each topic which is
a guarantee of quality in such way that the potential audience of this book, students and
researches who want to specialize in ambient intelligence field, can find an excellent analysis
of each of the topics tackled in each chapter and a description of author’s proposed solutions.
Finally we would like to express our gratitude to all authors for their contributions and also
to the reviewers for their time and corrections.
Félix Jesús Villanueva Molina

VII
Contents
Preface V
1. Integrating Ambient Intelligence Technologies Using an Architectural Approach 001
A. Paz-Lopez, G. Varela, S. Vazquez-Rodriguez, J. A. Becerra and R. J. Duro
2. Services Everywhere: an Object-Oriented Distributed Platform to Support
Pervasive Access to HW and SW Objects in Ambient Intelligence Environments 027
Jesús Barba, Félix Jesús Villanueva, David Villa, Francisco Moya, Fernando Rincón,
Maria José Santofimia and Juan Carlos López
3. A review of indoor localization technologies: towards navigational assistance
for topographical disorientation 051
Jorge Torres-Solis, Tiago H. Falk and Tom Chau
4. Framework for Visual Analysis of User Behaviour
in Ambient Intelligence Environment 085
Ivo Maly, Jan Curin, Pavel Slavik and Jan Kleindienst
5. Ambient Intelligence Interaction via Dialogue Systems 109
Porfírio Filipe and Nuno Mamede
6. Trust in global computing systems as a limit property emerging
from short range random interactions 125
Vasia Liagkou, Paul Spirakis, Yannis C. Stamatiou and Effie Makri

Integrating Ambient Intelligence Technologies Using an Architectural Approach 1
X
Integrating Ambient Intelligence Technologies
Using an Architectural Approach
A. Paz-Lopez, G. Varela, S. Vazquez-Rodriguez, J. A. Becerra and R. J. Duro
Grupo Integrado de Ingeniería, Universidad de A Coruña
Spain
1. Introduction
It seems difficult to agree on a concise and accurate definition of a concept as broad as
Ambient Intelligence. In short, it could be said that in such a context people interact with
each other and with the environment and are assisted in their tasks in a certain smart way.
The term Intelligence concerns the response that users expect from the system in terms of
what Artificial Intelligence stands for, that is, proactivity, predictability and adaptability in
its behaviours. This behaviour collection constitutes the functionalities that characterize an
AmI system. On the other hand, the term Ambient is related to human factors and conducts
and the ubiquitousness of a non invasive system. Indeed, the main goal should be user
expectation fulfilment and the dynamic adaptation of the system to his/her needs,
preferences and habits. In this context, the environment must be understood as an extended
environment where a person works, has its family life, its recreational time and its social life.
Therefore this environment involves the workplace, the home, the car or public places such
as malls or sports centers, among others.
At this point, some questions arise: How should so vast and dynamic environment be
managed? Where should the different software/hardware components be located? How do
these components interact each other? How are new hardware/software components
incorporated to an AmI system and how is it rearranged in order to integrate those
elements? What are the channels through which information flows and who should
supervise them? How could we take advantage of the numerous information
sources/targets, like sensors, actuators or microprocessor appliances, and bus technologies
available in a certain context? The idea that underlies all of these questions is the concept of
an Architecture that should provide support and consistency to hardware/software AmI
components and should allow AmI functionalities to be developed and integrated. This
chapter deals with what an architecture conceptually involves and the description of
possible approaches to the different issues related to it.
An architecture implies aspects concerning low-level hardware access, middleware and
architectural software considerations. Therefore, it doesn't provide any AmI functionalities
by itself but, on one hand, provides tools to system designers for the rapid development,
deployment, reusability and interoperability of AmI solutions; On the other hand, it serves
1

2
as a technological wrapping that grants coherence and compatibility between AmI
components contained in it by defining a specific model for each element.
At a first glance the approach of using the general architectural model would seem to be a
good beginning in order to try to solve the problems indicated before. There is, however, no
real consensus on this point in the literature. Many researchers just emphasize the
development of AmI functionalities while hardware/software structural issues are pushed
into the background. Hardware access matters and the complexity of physical network
structures are often underestimated. Also information concerning AmI services cannot
usually be shared with others and, currently, most AmI components are not aware of the
existence of other components within the same system.
Despite this conundrum of approaches and solutions, it seems clear that the design of a
global AmI architecture is necessary if good software/hardware engineering practices are to
be achieved and the systems show some of the properties desired such as scalability, fault
tolerance or ease of deployment and integration. It is in this line that some researchers have
opened up the field to AMI architecture design. It is the case of the SOPRANO (Wolf et al.,
2008; SOPRANO, 2007) and PERSONA (PERSONA, 2008) projects where platforms are
based on OSGi and SOA (Service Oriented Architectures) were employed. From another
point of view, a multi-agent based platform is proposed by AIT (Athens Information
Technology) through the CHIL (Soldatos et al., 2007) project. The AMIGO project proposes a
combination of both technologies, that is, SOA and agent based in (Vallee et al., 2005).
We will start this chapter by identifying the multiple topics that an architecture involves and
the needs that come up when developing real solutions for them. As a result of this first
analysis, we will define the conceptual model of an AmI architecture that is dealt with in
next section. It is structured as a collection of subsections concerning the different model
challenges. For each one of them an analysis of interest and needs, a review of the state of
the art and a description of our approach as compared to others are presented. In short,
structural software matters concerning the software platform, resource cooperation,
knowledge representation and ubiquity are dealt with as well as user-system interaction,
hardware virtualization and artificial intelligence functionalities. All the proposals that we
describe here were developed in the scope of a global architectural project that we know as
HI3 Architecture. After this, we will consider an example of using an HI3 system. The
usefulness and the interoperability of the modules described will be shown with the aid of
simple cases. Some conclusions and further avenues of research are outlined at the end of
the chapter.
2. Needs and challenges
There are many requirements in the design and development of an AmI architecture. Some
of them are common in distributed systems (with or without Artificial Intelligence), whereas
others are very specific of AmI environments.
First of all, it is obvious that the whole system will be made up of many different elements:
sensors, actuators, applications providing functionalities to users, intermediate services that
provide common functionalities to applications, system level utilities for system control and
logging, etc. All of these elements need to communicate to each other, consequently,
communications are our first clear and important need. Due to the fact that some
components, mainly sensors and actuators, will be physically distributed, special attention

will have to be paid to communications in order to guarantee reliability. Communications
should also be optimized in two aspects; minimize resource consumption, as some
components will have to run in devices with much reduced computational power, and
minimize processing time, because some applications will need real time, or near real time,
capabilities. Some sensors are susceptible of requiring high throughput, video cameras for
example, so the system should also support such high level throughput. In addition, every
AmI system should have the capability of growing, it is quite frustrating to try to expand an
existing installation and find a limit in the number of elements or throughput (as is usually
the case in current commercial systems). Thus, scalability is almost a must, and this brings
together the ability to process a large volume of data in communications. The final
characteristic related with communications is security. Information managed in an AmI
system is usually sensitive, as it could be used to describe private aspects of its users.
Therefore, communications should be secured through encryption and authentication.
Security should also be included at a component level, in order to protect malicious
replacement / injection of elements in the system, and at the user level, for obvious reasons.
Reliability is not only applicable to communications, it is a general requirement of any AmI
system, due to their nature: AmI systems have to interact with human beings in a non-
intrusive way, and it would be unacceptable for the user to have to restart an AmI system
when something fails. That is, reliability is necessary to achieve high availability. In this
context, redundancy is fundamental, although not sufficient, to obtain reliability. It means
that if any software or hardware component fails, its functionality is immediately replaced
by other components. Another characteristic that is necessary for reliability is fault
tolerance. Eventually, everything can (and will) fail, consequently hardware and software
must be designed to be able to recover when that happens. Related with this, some kind of
hardware hot-swap is, obviously, very interesting.
From a software engineering point of view, all the elements should be designed bearing
reusability in mind. The main reason is that an AmI system can, potentially, grow
throughout its operational life, and new needs should be solved as soon as possible reusing
components that are already available to the largest extent possible. In order to maximize
the possibility of reusing components, system elements should be as modular as possible.
Related to this and to high availability, it would be interesting to have also software hot-
swap capabilities, so that a given element in the system can be replaced without interfering
with the other elements. So as not to be tied to a specific hardware / O.S., something that is
not desirable as it would reduce application scope, the software employed and programmed
should be multi-platform, making hardware / software dependencies as low as possible in
terms of software layers. Other related thing to take into account is that, if we really want
hardware independence at sensor level, the AmI architecture should support different
protocols of different hardware makers, trying to abstract these different protocols as soon
as possible in the layer hierarchy. Finally, it is necessary to have some tools to control,
manage and inspect the behaviour of an AmI system.
Human activity is complex, highly unpredictable and situation dependent. Unobtrusive
applications within these intelligent spaces need information about the current state of the
environment to dynamically adapt to different situations. Adaptation and unobtrusiveness
are essential to social acceptability of AmI systems. These characteristics of human
environments make it impossible to pre-program the appropriate behaviours for a context-
aware service or application. Hence, an AmI architecture should include an extensible,

4
adaptable and efficient model for handling and sharing context information, providing a
structured and integrated view of the environment in which the system runs.
These requirements and needs really condition the way an AmI architecture should be
designed. They are obviously general principles that have to be taken into account from the
beginning when considering the design of the main components and structure of the
architecture. Many more needs and requirements will arise as we go deeper into de details
of each component, and we will comment on them in the corresponding sections.
Fig. 1. HI3 architecture conceptual model
3. Architecting ambient intelligence
In the previous section we have identified a set of properties or key areas that we think an
integral Ambient Intelligence software development platform should tackle in order to
alleviate the problems associated to AmI software development. In this section we are going
to address thewse diverse topics, providing a brief review of the most interesting
approaches found in the literature to provide solutions to each of them.
Along with the detailed description of each key area and its state of the art review, we will
present our version of an integral general purpose AmI system development architecture,.
This allows us to provide a complete vision of the AmI software development field, going
from the problems and requirements of the developers to the construction of a complete
solution for them.
Before starting the discussion about the different key topics, and in order to facilitate the
description of the different areas of the proposed solution, we will give here a brief
overview of our approach. In the last few years we have been working on the development
and application to different environments of a multi-layer intelligent agent based software
architecture called HI3 (Varela et al., 2007; Paz et al., 2008, a; Paz et al., 2008, b). HI3 stands

for Humanized, Intelligent, Interactive and Integrated environments. The objective of this
architecture is to provide the methodology, structure and base services to easily produce
modular scalable systems in ambient intelligence settings that can operate without
downgrading their performance as the system grows. The main idea behind our proposal is
a layer based design that enables the division of system elements into levels, reducing the
coupling between modules, facilitating abstraction as well as the distribution of
responsibilities. A high level view of the design proposal is shown in Figure 1. A further
description of this design will be presented in following sections and more information can
be found in (Varela et al., 2007; Paz et al. 2008, b).
In order to implement this conceptual model, we have chosen a multiagent technology
based approach supported by the JADE agent framework. Many of the characteristics of this
paradigm fit perfectly with the main objectives for our architecture, such as autonomous
operation, distribution and collaboration on task resolution, proactivity, intrinsic
communications capabilities, mobility and adaptability.
3.1 Conceptual modeling
AmI systems are much more complicated than traditional computing systems. Hence,
characteristics such as adaptability, flexibility, interoperability and modularity are more
important. Furthermore, these systems must provide common improvements such as
service discovery, self-organization, rich knowledge representations and context-awareness.
To address these challenges, especially when seeking real AmI system interoperability, a
general reference conceptual model and architecture is necessary. In recent years, a lot of
research institutions and universities have been working on the definition and development
of architectures and middleware that deal with the complex characteristics of AmI
environments. However, only a small part of these projects try to formally define
conceptual models that are not restricted to particular AmI domains or environments.
Some recent research efforts in the direction described above can be found, for instance, in
(Rui et al., 2009) where the authors defend the need of general reference models in AmI and
present a conceptual hierarchical model to describe a typical AmI application system. They
propose a theory to describe AmI systems using a five-layer model: sensors and actuators
layer, AmI network and middleware layer, devices layer, service layer and AmI applications
layer. They do not include, as part of this work, high-level development tools that could
closely guide developers in the process of building systems that fulfill the proposed
conceptual model. Another example is the PERSONA project (PERSONA, 2009) which
focuses on the specification of a reference architecture for ambient assisted living (AAL)
spaces. The authors formally define a logical architecture that abstracts all functionality not
leading to context, input, or output events as services.
Inspired by some of the ideas underlying these projects we developed the HI3 architecture,
focusing on interoperability, scalability and ease of deployment.
HI3 Architecture conceptual model
As previously described, the HI3 architecture proposed here has a conceptual structure
based on a multi-layer design schematized in Figure 1. This conceptual model establishes
criteria and defines recommendations that facilitate developers the division of AmI systems
into decoupled modules as well as the distribution responsibilities using homogeneous
design principles and patterns. Communications between layers is vertical. Within layer,

6
horizontal communications are allowed thus permitting the cooperation between elements.
The main layers defined in this model are:
 Device Access Layer: It includes elements that encapsulate concrete logic to access
physical devices. It is divided into two sub-layers: device drivers and device access
API.
 Sensing and Actuation layer: There are two types of elements in this layer: sensing
elements and actuation elements. Sensing elements provide access to sensor type
devices (using the device access API). Similarly, actuation elements must provide
the required functionality to command actuator type devices. The elements of this
layer are proxies of the physical devices.
 Service layer: A service is an element designed to solve a high level task that does
not provide a complete solution for a system use case. Services are managed
through a repository that enables the discovery of services required by others to
perform their task.
 Application layer: This layer hosts the elements representing and implementing
particular functionalities that a user expects from the system. These components
make use of services registered in the system to carry out their tasks.
Furthermore, there is a component that is shared by the three higher level layers, the
context. Its main goal is to define and manage the elements that must be observed in order
to model the current state of the environment.
The previous high-level conceptual model provides a common vocabulary and guidelines to
make the construction of AmI systems easier through technology abstraction and
component composition and reusability. However, we believe that this model must be
supported by middleware that abstracts developers from repetitive tasks and complex
interactions with particular technologies. Specifically, we chose a multi-agent based
approach to develop a middleware solution (fulfilling the hi3 architecture conceptual model
requirements) that builds up a container for AmI applications providing advanced features
such as high level inter-agent communications facilities, multi-agent models with support
for the declarative definition of components, distributed management tools or development
utilities (see section 3.2 for technical details).
This multi-agent based middleware promotes the division of large and complex AmI
systems into highly decoupled components and, at the same time, provides what we call a
multi-agent declarative model. The multi-agent declarative model is, on one hand, a model
to describe a multi-agent system and its components and, on the other, it is a set of tools to
declaratively define these components. As a model it brings together all the different
elements that our platform leaves in the hands of the developers to build new applications.
The top level concept of our platform is the multi-agent system (MAS). The platform is
prepared to support several types of MAS with different high level characteristics but, in its
basic form, they are a collection of instances of different types of agents that work together
to perform a task. Directly below the MAS concept is the agent-type concept. An agent-type
species the components that will define an agent in our platform, providing a way to
declaratively build new agent-types by reusing pre-existing components and mixing them
with new ones. Agent-types are defined according to a set of concepts that also have
independent and declarative definitions: behaviours, message processors, publications,
arguments for agents parameterization and descriptions of public functionalities.

Together, the high-level conceptual model and the multi-agent declarative model provide
common guidelines and tools that control the entire process of developing interoperable
AmI systems.
3.2 Middleware fundamentals
As previously stated, sharing a common vocabulary, concepts and abstractions among AmI
developers is the first step towards more interoperable, reusable and easier to design
systems. In the end it brings to the AmI field what UML or the object oriented programming
paradigms brought to the programming field. Like paradigms such as OO, a conceptual
model for AmI systems by itself does not produce a huge improvement on AmI
development efforts. Developers still need to implement those designs that will be heavily
based on complex distributed operations and on the integration of a huge number of
techniques and technologies. In order to speed up the development of AmI systems,
developers will need software, or more precisely, middleware, that supports the previously
described models and provides them with tools and utilities that ease the development by
allowing them to focus on the logic of the desired functionality, rather than on the
interaction and integration of the different underlying technologies and devices.
As AmI is a relatively new field (it started to capture attention on the last ten years) until
recently, the majority of projects had their focus set on achieving functionalities for very
concrete niches (some examples may be found in (Tapia et al., 2004; Brdiczka et al., 2009;
Krumm et al., 2000; Bernardin et al. 2007), taking ad-hoc design and implementation
decisions focused on the particular environment dramatically reducing the possibility of
adapting those projects to other environments, objectives or technologies. In order to
operate in a real life scenario, every one of those projects needed solutions for very similar
problems, like distributed component deployment and communications, sensor/actuator
hardware interaction or fault tolerance. To put an end to that process of continuously
reinventing the wheel, much in the same way as had previously happened before in other
areas like multi-agent systems, numerous projects have been started with the aim of
producing general purpose middleware that make the development of AmI systems easier.
From a very superficial point of view, it is possible to classify them according to their
objectives. On one hand there are projects that are focused on delivering solutions to specific
environments, they make decisions and adopt technologies that may make them less general
purpose but easier to use in those environments. Prominent examples are projects like
SOPRANO (Wolf et al., 2008), focused on elderly care scenarios, (and which relies on
abstractions from that environment for component definition and on an ontology based
semantic system for component interaction). The already mentioned PERSONA project
devoted to increasing the independence of old people or the iRoom (MIT Oxygen, 2009),
centred on the work environment. On the other hand we may find projects with a general
purpose in mind. These projects usually devote great efforts to technology interoperability
aspects and to providing high level abstractions and communications capabilities suitable
for the typical requirements of AmI systems. Examples are the AMIGO project (AMIGO, b,
2009), although mostly focused on the home entertainment environment it provides a very
versatile architecture, the EMBASSI project (EMBASSI, 2009), that tries to provide the
needed technological infrastructure for the development of AmI systems in environments
like the home, automotive vehicles and kiosks. The works carried out by Chen Rui et. al (Rui

8
et al., 2009), towards the definition and implementation of a general purpose AmI
framework and our own approach, the HI3 project (Varela et. Al, 2007; Paz et al., 2008, b).
Before starting the discussion on the different technical approaches to the development of
ambient intelligence middleware, it is important to take a look at the objectives of AmI in
order to establish a series of prerequisites or key areas that a middleware for AmI
development should deal with. One key differentiation factor of AmI with respect to general
software development is that AmI systems are intended for operation in the real world,
interacting with the environment and its inhabitants, this fact alone brings in some strong
requirements such as:
 Multi-platform compatibility and interoperability.
 Modularity.
 Distributed operation.
 Dynamic management of components.
 System management.
Multi-platform compatibility and interoperability
AmI software needs to support its deployment on very different software and hardware
platforms, from PCs to mobile phones, going through home appliances, automotive vehicles
or consumer electronic devices. Because of this almost all the projects having to do with the
development of AmI middleware are implementing them with technologies that inherently
support multiple platforms, like interpreted programming languages such as Microsoft .Net
or SUN Java and XML based mechanisms for communications.
Modularity
Most authors agree that AmI systems need to be highly modular in order to model and
interact with a highly dynamic and complex environment like the real world. They need to
contemplate and interoperate with a large number of devices and technologies to sense,
reason and act on the environment. A design based on loosely coupled components is
essential to accommodate that disparity in a sustainable and scalable system. It also forms
the basis for component reusability, a key capacity to make more extensible and adaptable
systems.
Modularity is a key aspect of AmI middleware, this can be seen in the fact that the projects
we cited before can be divided by the techniques they apply to define components. Two
main approaches can be distinguished. Projects that rely on Service Oriented Architecture
models (SOA), and projects that use a multi-agent approach.
In the last decade, SOA has been widely adopted in the enterprise development field as a
good approach for obtaining more sustainable and scalable systems. The SOA approach
promotes a system design based on services (components) that define an interface that other
components can use to access the functionality of the services without knowing anything
about the service´s internal workings. The key design principle of SOA is that the services
must be highly decoupled and reusable so that systems can be built by the aggregation or
orchestration of multiple services. Numerous AmI projects have adopted SOA as their basis
for system design and modularization, mainly due to the fact that it provides a good
solution for modularization. Some examples of those projects are SOPRANO (Wolf et al.,
2008), which is based on the development of services that provide semantic contracts related
to different levels of an elderly care scenario to specify its functionality and requirements to

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CHAPTER II
A TERRIBLE REVELATION
Without requesting permission, John Vanbrugh filled his glass with
wine, which he drank leisurely with his eyes fixed on the Advocate's
pale face the while. When he spoke, it did not escape the Advocate
that he seemed to fling aside the flippancy of manner which had
hitherto characterised him, and that his voice was unusually earnest.
"I do not ask you to excuse me," he said, "for recalling the
memory of a time when you did not despise my companionship. It is
necessary for my purpose. We were, indeed, more than companions-
-we were friends. What it was that made you consort with me is just
now a mystery to me. The contrast in our characters may have
tempted you. I, a careless, light-hearted fellow who loved to enjoy
the hours; you, a serious, cold-hearted student, dreaming perhaps
of the position you have attained. It may be that you deliberately
made a study of me to see what use you could make of my
weakness. However it was, I lived in the present, you in the future.
The case is now reversed, and it is I who live in the future.
"I have said you were cold-hearted, and I do not suppose you will
trouble yourself to deny it. Such as you are formed to rise, while we
impulsive, reckless devils are pretty sure to tumble in the mud. But I
never had such a fall as you are threatened with, and scapegrace,
vagabond as I am, I am thankful not to have on my conscience what
you have on yours.
"Now for certain facts.

"I contemplated--no, I mistake, I never contemplated--I settled to
go on a tour for a few weeks, and scramble through bits of France,
Switzerland, and Italy. You will remember my mentioning it to you.
Yes, I see in your face that you are following me, and I shall feel
obliged by your correcting me if in my statement of facts I should
happen to trip. The story I am telling needs no effort of the
imagination to embellish it. It is in its bare aspect sufficiently ghastly
and cruel.
"When I was about to start on my tour, you, of your own accord,
offered to accompany me. You had been studying too hard, and a
wise doctor recommended you to rest a while, if you did not care to
have brain-fever, and also recommended you to seek new scenes in
the company of a cheerful friend whose light spirits would be a good
medicine for an overworked brain. You took the doctor's advice, and
you did me the honour to choose me for a companion. So we started
on our little tour of pleasure.
"To shorten what I have to say I will not dwell upon the details of
our jaunt, but I fix myself, with you, at Zermatt, where we stayed for
three weeks. The attraction--what was it? The green valleys--the
grandeur of the scenery? No. A woman. More correctly speaking,
two women. Young, lovely, inexperienced, innocent. Daughters of a
peasant, whose cottage door was always open to us, and who was
by no means unwilling to receive small presents of money from
liberal gentlemen like ourselves. Again I slip details--the story
becomes trite. We captivated the hearts of the simple peasant
maidens, and amused ourselves with them. In me that was natural;
it was my way. But in you this circumstance was something to be
astonished at. For just as long as you remained at Zermatt you were
a transformed being. I don't think, until that time, I had ever heard
you laugh heartily. Well, suddenly you disappeared; getting up one
morning, I found that my friend had deserted me.
"It was shabby behaviour, at the best. However, it did not
seriously trouble me; every man is his own master, and I think we

were beginning to tire a little of each other. It was awkward, though,
to be asked by one of our pretty peasant friends where my
handsome friend had gone, and when he would return, and not be
able to give a sensible answer.
"This girl, who had been in your presence always bright and
joyous and happy, grew sad and quiet and anxious-looking in your
absence, and appeared to have a secret on her mind that was
making her wretched. I stayed on at Zermatt for another month, and
then I bade good-bye to my sweetheart, promising to come again in
a year. I kept my promise, but when I asked for her in Zermatt I
heard that she was dead, and that her sister and father had left the
village, and had gone no one knew whither.
"It will be as well for me here to remind you that during our stay
in Zermatt we gave no home address, and that no one knew where
we came from or where we lived. So prudent were we that we acted
as if we were ashamed of our names.
"Three years afterwards in another part of Switzerland I met the
woman to whom you had made love; she had lost her father, but
was not without a companion. She had a little daughter--your child!"
"A lie!" said the Advocate, with difficulty controlling himself; "a
monstrous fabrication!"
"A solemn truth," replied Vanbrugh, "verified by the mother's
oath, and the certificate of birth. To dispute it will be a waste of
breath and time. Hear me to the end. The mother had but one
anxiety--to forget you and your treachery, and to be able to live so
that her shame should be concealed. To accomplish this it was
necessary that she should live among strangers, and it was for this
reason she had left her native village. She asked me about you, and
I--well, I played your game. I told her you had gone to a distant part
of the world, and that I knew nothing of you. We were still friends,
you and I, although our friendship was cooling. When I next saw

you I had it in my mind to relate the circumstance to you; but you
will remember that just at that time you took it into your head to put
an end to our intimacy. We had a few words, I think, and you were
pleased to tell me that you disapproved of my habits of life, and that
you intended we should henceforth be strangers. I was not in an
amiable mood when I left you, and I resolved, on the first
opportunity, to seek the woman you had brought to shame, and
advise her to take such steps against you as would bring disgrace to
your door. It would be paying you in your own coin, I thought.
However, good fortune stood your friend at that time. My own
difficulties or pleasures, or both combined, claimed my attention,
and occupied me for many months, and when next I went to the
village in which I had last seen your peasant sweetheart and your
child, they were not to be found. I made inquiries, but could learn
nothing of them, so I gave it up as a bad job, and forgot all about
the matter. Since then very many years have passed, and I sank and
sank, and you rose and rose. We did not meet again; but I confess,
when I used to read accounts of your triumphs and your rising fame,
that I would not have neglected an opportunity to have done you an
ill turn had it been in my power. I was at the lowest ebb, everything
was against me, and I was wondering how I should manage to
extricate myself from the desperate position into which bad luck had
driven me, when, not many weeks since, I met in the streets of
Geneva two women. They were hawking nosegays, and the moment
I set eyes upon the elder of these women I recognised in her your
old sweetheart from Zermatt. You appear to be faint. Shall I pause a
while before I continue?"
"No," said the Advocate, and he drank with feverish eagerness
two glasses of wine; "go on to the end."
"It was your sweetheart from Zermatt, and no other. And the
younger of these women, one of the loveliest creatures I ever
beheld, was known as Madeline the flower-girl."

The Advocate, with a sudden movement, turned his chair, so that
his face was hidden from Vanbrugh.
"They were poor--and I was poor. If what I suspected, when I
gazed at Madeline, was correct, I saw not only an opportunity for
revenge upon you, but a certainty of being able to obtain money
from you. The secret to such a man as you, married to a young and
beautiful woman, was worth a fair sum, which I resolved should be
divided between Pauline--that was the name adopted by the mother
of your child--and myself. You cannot accuse me of a want of
frankness. I discovered where they lived--I had secret speech with
Pauline. My suspicion was no longer a suspicion--it was a fact.
Madeline the flower-girl was your daughter."
He paused, but the Advocate made no movement, and did not
speak.
"How," continued Vanbrugh, "to turn that fact to advantage? How,
and in what way, to make it worth a sum sufficiently large to satisfy
me? That was what now occupied my thoughts. Madeline and her
mother were even poorer than I supposed, and from Pauline's lips
did I hear how anxious she was to remove her daughter from the
temptations by which she was surrounded. In dealing with you, I
knew it was necessary to be well prepared. You are a powerful
antagonist to cope with, and one must have sure cards in his hand
to have even a chance of winning any game he is playing with such
a man as yourself. Pauline and I spoke frequently together, and
gradually I unfolded to her the plan I had resolved upon. Without
disclosing your name I told her sufficiently to convince her that, by
my aid, she might obtain a sum of money from the man who had
wronged her which would enable her to place herself and her
daughter in a safer position--a position in which a girl as beautiful as
Madeline would almost certainly meet with a lover of good social
position whom she would marry and with whom she would lead a
happy life. Thus would she escape the snare into which she herself
fell when she met you. This was the mother's dream. Satisfied that I

could guide her to this end, Pauline signed an agreement, which is in
my possession, by which she bound herself to pay me half the
money she obtained from you in compensation for your wrong. Only
one thing was to remain untouched by her and me--a sum which I
resolved to obtain from you as a marriage portion for your daughter.
Probably, under other circumstances, you would not have given me
credit for so much consideration, but viewed in the light of the
position in which you are placed, you may believe me. If you doubt
it, I can show you the clause in black and white. This being settled
between Pauline and me, I told her who you were--how rich you
were, how famous you had grown, and how that you had lately
married a young and beautiful woman. The affairs of a man as
eminent as yourself are public property, and the newspapers delight
in recording every particular, be it ever so trivial, connected with the
lives of men of your rank. It was then necessary to ascertain what
proof we held that you were the father of Madeline. Our visit to
Zermatt could be proved--her oath and mine, in connection with
dates, would suffice. Then there would, in all likelihood, be living in
Zermatt men and women whose testimony would be valuable. The
great point was the birth of the child and the date, and to my
discomfiture I learnt that Pauline had lost the certificate of her
daughter's birth. But the record existed elsewhere, and it was to
obtain a copy of this record, and to collect other evidence, that
Pauline left her daughter. Her mission was a secret one, necessarily,
and thus no person, not even Madeline, had any knowledge of its
purport. What, now, remains to be told? Nothing that you do not
know--except that when Pauline left her daughter for a few weeks, it
was arranged that she and I should meet in Geneva on a certain
date, to commence our plan of operations, and that I, having
business elsewhere, was a couple of hundred miles away when
Gautran murdered your hapless child. I arrived in Geneva on the last
day of Gautran's trial; and on that evening, as you came out of the
court-house, I placed in your hands the letter asking you to give me
an interview. I will say nothing of my feelings when I heard that you
had successfully defended, and had set free, the murderer of your
child. What I had to look after was myself and my own interest. And

now you, who at the beginning of this interview rejected a renewal
of the old friendship which existed between us, may probably
inwardly acknowledge that had you accepted the hand I offered you,
it is not I who would have been the gainer."
Again he paused, and again, neither by word or movement, did
the Advocate break the silence.
"It will be as well," presently said Vanbrugh, "to recapitulate what
I have to sell. First, the fact that you, a man of spotless character--
so believed--deliberately betrayed a simple innocent girl, and then
deserted her. Inconceivable, the world would say, in such a man,
unless the proofs were incontestable. The proofs are incontestable.
Next, the birth of your child, and your brutal--pardon me, there is no
other word to express it, and it is one which would be freely used--
negligence to ascertain whether your conduct had brought open
shame and ruin upon the girl you betrayed. Next, the knowledge of
the life of poverty and suffering led by the mother and the child,
while you were in the possession of great wealth. Next, the murder
of your child by a man whose name is uttered with execration. Next,
your voluntary espousal of his cause, and your successful defence of
a monster whom all men knew to be guilty of the foul crime. Next,
your knowledge, at the time you defended him, that he was guilty of
the murder of your own child. Next, in corroboration of this
knowledge, the dying declaration of Gautran, solemnly sworn to and
signed by him. A strong hand. No stronger has ever been held by
any man's enemy, and until you come to my terms, I am your
enemy. If you refuse to purchase of me what I have to sell--the
documents in my possession, and my sacred silence to the last day
of my life upon the matters which affect you--and for such a sum as
will make my future an easy one, I give you my word I will use my
power against you, and will drag you down from the height upon
which you stand. I cannot speak in more distinct terms. You can
rescue me from poverty, I can rescue you from ignominy."

The Advocate turned his face to Vanbrugh, who saw that, in the
few minutes during which it had been hidden from his sight, it had
assumed a hue of deadly whiteness. All the sternness had departed
from it, and the cold, piercing eyes wavered as they looked first at
Vanbrugh, then at the objects in the study. It was as though the
Advocate were gazing, for the first time, upon the familiar things by
which he was surrounded. Strange to say, this change in him
seemed to make him more human--seemed to declare, "Stern and
cold-hearted as I have appeared to the world, I am susceptible to
tenderness." The mask had fallen from his face, and he stood now
revealed--a man with human passions and human weaknesses, to
whom a fatal sin in his younger days had brought a retribution as
awful as it was ever the lot of a human being to suffer. There was
something pitiable in this new presentment of a strong, earnest, self-
confident nature, and even Vanbrugh was touched by it.
During the last half-hour the full force of the storm had burst over
the House of White Shadows. The rain poured down with terrific
power, and the thunder shook the building to its foundations. The
Advocate listened with a singular and curious intentness to the
terrible sounds, and when Vanbrugh remarked, "A fearful night," he
smiled in reply. But it was the smile of a man whose heart was
tortured to the extreme limits of human endurance.
Once again he filled a glass with wine, and raised it to his mouth,
but as the liquor touched his lips, he shuddered, and holding the
glass upright in his hand, he turned it slowly over and poured it on
the ground; then, with much gentleness, he replaced the glass upon
the table.
"What has become of the woman you speak of as Pauline?" he
asked. His very voice was changed. It was such as would proceed
from one who had been prostrated by long and almost mortal
sickness.

"I do not know," replied Vanbrugh. "I have neither seen nor heard
from her since the day before she left her daughter."
"Say that I was disposed," said the Advocate, speaking very
slowly, and pausing occasionally, as though he was apprehensive
that he would lose control of speech, "to purchase your silence, do
you think I should be safe in the event of her appearing on the
scene? Would not her despair urge her to seek revenge upon the
man who betrayed and deserted her, and who set her daughter's
murderer free?"
"It might be so--but at all events she would be ignorant of your
knowledge of Gautran's guilt. This danger at least would be averted.
The secret is ours at present, and ours only."
"True. You believe that I knew Gautran to be guilty when I
defended him?"
"I am forced to believe it. Explain, otherwise, why you permitted
him to visit you secretly in the dead of night, and why you filled his
pockets with gold."
"It cannot be explained. Yet what motive could I have had in
setting him free?"
"It is not for me to say. What I know, I know. I pretend to nothing
further."
"Do you suppose I care for money?" As the Advocate asked the
question, he opened a drawer in the escritoire, and produced a roll
of notes. "Take them; they are yours. But I do not purchase your
silence with them. I give the money to you as a gift."
"And I thank you for it. But I must have more."
"Wait--wait. This story of yours has yet to be concluded."

"Is it my fancy," said Vanbrugh, "or is it a real sound I hear? The
ringing of a bell--and now, a beating at the gates without, and a
man's voice calling loudly?"
Without hesitation, the Advocate went from his study into the
grounds. The fury of the storm made it difficult for him to keep his
feet, but he succeeded in reaching the gate and opening it. A hand
grasped his, and a man clung to him for support. The Advocate
could not see the face of his visitor, nor, although he heard a voice
speaking to him, did the words of the answer fall upon his ears.
Staggering blindly through the grounds, they arrived at the door of
the villa, and stumbled into the passage. There, by the aid of the
rose lamp which hung in the hall, he distinguished the features of
his visitor. It was Father Capel.
"Have you come to see me?" asked the Advocate, "or are you
seeking shelter from the storm?"
"I have come to see you," replied Father Capel. "I hardly hoped to
find you up, but perceived lights in your study windows, and they
gave me confidence to make the attempt to speak with you. I have
been beating at the gates for fully half an hour."
He spoke in his usual gentle tones, and gazed at the Advocate's
white face with a look of kindly and pitying penetration.
"You are wet to the skin," said the Advocate. "I must find a
change of clothing for you."
"No, my son," said the priest; "I need none. It is not the storm
without I dread--it is the storm within." As though desirous this
remark should sink into the Advocate's heart, he paused a few
moments before he spoke again. "I fear this storm of Nature will do
much harm. Trees are being uprooted and buildings thrown down.
There is danger of a flood which may devastate the village, and
bring misery to the poor. But there is a gracious God above us"--he
looked up reverently--"and if a man's conscience is clear, all is well."

"There is a significance in the words you utter," said the Advocate,
conducting the priest to his study, "which impresses me. Your
mission is an important one."
"Most important; it concerns the soul, not the body."
"A friend of mine," said the Advocate, pointing to Vanbrugh, who
was standing when they entered, "who has visited me to-night for
the first time for many years, on a mission as grave as yours. It was
he who heard your voice at the gates."
Father Capel inclined his head to Vanbrugh, who returned the
courtesy.
"I wish to confer with you privately," said the priest. "It will be
best that we should be alone."
"Nay," said the Advocate, "you may speak freely in his presence. I
have but one secret from him and all men. I beg you to proceed."

CHAPTER III
PAULINE
"I have no choice but to obey you," said Father Capel, "for time
presses, and a life is hanging in the balance. I should have been
here before had it not been that my duty called me most awfully and
suddenly to a man who has been smitten to death by the hand of
God. The man you defended--Gautran, charged with the murder of
an innocent girl--is dead. Of him I may not speak at present. Death-
bed confessions are sacred, and apart from that, not even in the
presence of your dearest friend can I say one further word
concerning the sinner whose soul is now before its Creator. I came
to you from a dying woman, who is known by the name of Pauline."
Both Vanbrugh and the Advocate started at the mention of the
name.
"Fate is merciful," said the Advocate in a low tone; "its blows are
sharp and swift."
"Before I left her I promised to bring you to her tomorrow,"
continued the priest, "but Providence, which directed me to Gautran
in his dying moments, impels me to break that promise. She may die
before to-morrow, and she has that to say which vitally concerns
you, and which you must hear, if she has strength enough to speak.
I ask you to come with me to her without a moment's delay, through
this storm, which has been sent as a visitation for human crime."
"I am ready to accompany you," said the Advocate.

"And I," said Vanbrugh.
"No," said the priest, "only he and I. Who you are I do not seek to
know, but you cannot accompany us."
"Remain here," said the Advocate to Vanbrugh; "when I return I
will hide nothing from you. Now, Father Capel."
It was not possible for them to engage in conversation. The
roaring of the wind prevented a word from being heard. For mutual
safety they clasped hands and proceeded on their way. They
encountered many dangers, but escaped them. Torrents of water
poured down from the ranges--great branches snapped from the
trees and fell across their path--the valleys were in places knee-deep
in water--and occasionally they fancied they heard cries of human
distress in the distance. If the priest had not been perfectly familiar
with the locality, they would not have arrived at their destination,
but he guided his companion through the storm, and they stood at
length before the cottage in which Pauline lay.
Father Capel lifted the latch, and pulled the Advocate after him
into the room.
There were but two apartments in the cottage. Pauline lay in the
room at the back. In a corner of the room in which they found
themselves a man lay asleep; his wife was sitting in a chair, watching
and waiting. She rose wearily as the priest and the Advocate
entered.
"I am glad you have come, father," she said, "she has been very
restless, and once she gave a shriek, like a death-shriek, which
curdled my blood. She woke and frightened my child."
She pointed to a baby-girl, scarcely eighteen months old, who
was lying by her father with her eyes wide open. The child, startled
by the entrance of strangers, ran to her mother, who took her on her

lap, saying petulantly, "There, there--be quiet. The gentlemen won't
hurt you."
"Is Pauline awake now?" asked Father Capel.
The woman went to the inner room and returned. "She is
sleeping," she said, "and is very quiet."
Father Capel beckoned to the Advocate, who followed him to the
bedside of the dying woman. She lay so still that the priest lowered
his head to hers to ascertain whether she was breathing.
"Life appears to be ebbing away," he whispered to the Advocate;
"she may die in her sleep."
Quiet as she was, there was no peace in her face; an expression
of exquisite suffering rested on it. The sign of suffering, denoting
how sorely her heart had been wrung, caused the Advocate's lips to
quiver.
"It is I who have brought her to this," he thought. "But for me she
would not be lying in a dying state before me."
He was tortured not only by remorse, but by a terror of himself.
Notwithstanding that so many years had passed since he last
gazed upon her, she was not so much changed that he did not
recognise in her the blooming peasant girl of Zermatt. Since then he
had won honour and renown and the admiration and esteem of
men; the best that life could offer was his, or had been his until the
fatal day upon which he resolved to undertake the defence of
Gautran. And now--how stood the account? He was the accomplice
of the murderer of his own child--the mother of his child was dying
in suffering--his wife was false to him--his one friend had betrayed
him. The monument of greatness he had raised had crumbled away,
and in a very little while the world would know him for what he was.

His bitterest enemy could not have held him in deeper despisal than
he held himself.
"You recognise her?" said the priest.
"Yes."
"And her child, Madeline, was yours?"
"I am fain to believe it," said the Advocate; "but the proof is not
too clear."
"The proof is there," said the priest, pointing to Pauline; "she has
sworn it. Do you think--knowing that death's door is open for her to
enter--knowing that her child, the only being she loved on earth, is
waiting for her in the eternal land--that she would, by swearing
falsely, and with no end in view that could possibly benefit herself,
imperil the salvation of her soul? It is opposed to human reason."
"It is. I am forced to believe what I would give my life to know
was false."
"Unhappy man! Unhappy man!" said the priest, sinking--on his
knees. "I will pray for you, and for the woman whose life you
blighted."
The Advocate did not join the priest in prayer. His stern sense of
justice restrained him. The punishment he had brought upon himself
he would bear as best he might, and he would not inflict upon
himself the shameful humiliation of striving to believe that, by
prayers and tears, he could suddenly atone for a crime as terrible as
that of which he was guilty.
"Father Capel," he said, when the priest rose from his knees,
"from what you have said, I gather that the man Gautran made
confession to you before he died. I do not seek to know what that
confession was, but with absolute certainty I can divine its nature.

The man you saw in my study brought to me Gautran's dying
declaration, signed by Gautran himself, which charges me with a
crime so horrible that, were I guilty of it, laden as I am with the
consequences of a sin which I do not repudiate, I should deserve
the worst punishment. Are you aware of the existence of this
document?"
"I hear of its existence now for the first time," replied the priest.
"When I left the bedside of this unhappy woman, and while I was
wending my way home through the storm, I heard cries and
screams for help on a hill near the House of White Shadows, as
though two men were engaged in a deadly struggle. I proceeded in
the direction of the conflict, and discovered only Gautran, who had
been crushed to the earth by the falling of a tree which had been
split by the storm. He admitted that he and another man were
fighting, and that the design was murder. I made search, both then
and afterwards, for the other man, but did not succeed in finding
him. I left Gautran for the purpose of obtaining assistance to
extricate him, for the tree had fallen across his body, and he could
not move. When I returned he was dead, and some gold which he
had asked me to take from his pocket was gone; an indication that,
during my absence, human hands had been busy about him. If
Gautran's dying declaration be authentic, it must have been obtained
while I was away to seek for assistance."
"I can piece the circumstances," said the Advocate. "The man you
saw in my study was the man who was engaged in the struggle with
Gautran. It was he who obtained the confession, and he who stole
the gold. In that confession I am charged with undertaking the
defence of Gautran with the knowledge that he was guilty. It is not
true. When I defended him I believed him to be innocent; and if he
made a similar declaration to you, he has gone to his account with a
black lie upon his soul. That will not clear me, I know, and I do not
mention it to you for the purpose of exciting your pity for me. It is
simply because it is just that you should hear my denial of the
charge; and it is also just that you should hear something more. Up

to the hour of Gautran's acquittal I believed him, degraded and vile
as he was, to be innocent of the murder; but that night, as I was
walking to the House of White Shadows, I met Gautran, who, in the
darkness, supposing me to be a stranger, would have robbed me,
and probably taken my life. I made myself known to him, and he,
overcome with terror at the imaginary shadow of his victim which his
remorse and ignorance had conjured up, voluntarily confessed to me
that he was guilty. My error--call it by what strange name you will--
dated from that moment. Knowing that the public voice was against
me, I had not the honesty to take the right course. But if I," he
added, with a gloomy recollection of his wife and friend, "had not by
my own act rendered valueless the fruits of a life of earnest
endeavour, it would have been done for me by those in whom I
placed a sacred trust."
For several hours Father Capel and the Advocate remained by the
bedside of Pauline, who lay unconscious, as if indeed, as the priest
had said, life was ebbing away in her sleep. The storm continued
and increased in intensity, and had it not been that the little hut
which sheltered them was protected by the position in which it
stood, it would have been swept away by the wind. From time to
time the peasant gave them particulars of the devastation created by
the floods, which were rushing in torrents from every hill, but their
duty chained them to the bedside of Pauline. An hour before noon
she opened her eyes, and they rested upon the face of the
Advocate.
"You have come," she sighed.
He knelt by the bed, and addressed her, but it was with difficulty
he caught the words she spoke. Death was very near.
"Was Madeline my daughter?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Pauline, "as I am about to appear before my
God!"

The effort exhausted her, and she lay still for many minutes. Then
her hand feebly sought her pillow, and the Advocate, perceiving that
she wished to obtain something from under it, searched and found a
small packet. He knew immediately, when she motioned that she
desired him to retain it, that it contained the certificate of his
daughter's birth. The priest prayed audibly for the departing soul.
Pauline's lips moved; the Advocate placed his ear close. She
breathed the words:
"We shall meet again soon! Pray for forgiveness!"
Then death claimed her, and her earthly sorrows were ended.

CHAPTER IV
ONWARD--TO DEATH
Late in the afternoon the Advocate was stumbling, almost blindly,
through the tempest towards the House of White Shadows. Father
Capel had striven in vain to dissuade him from making the attempt
to reach the villa.
"There is safety only in the sheltered heights," said the priest. "By
this time the valleys are submerged, and the dwellings therein are
being swept away. Ah me--ah me! how many of my poor are ruined;
how many dead! Not in my experience have I seen a storm as
terrible as this. It is sent as a warning and a punishment. Only the
strongest houses in the villages that lie in the valleys will be able to
withstand its fury. Be persuaded, and remain here until its force is
spent."
He spoke to one who was deaf to reason. It seemed to the
Advocate as though the end of his life had come, as though his hold
upon the world might at any moment be sapped; but while he yet
lived there was before him a task which it was incumbent upon him
to perform. It was imperative that he should have speech with his
wife and Christian Almer.
"I have work to do," he said to the priest, "and it must be done
to-day."
An unaccustomed note in his voice caused Father Capel to regard
him with even a more serious attention than he had hitherto
bestowed upon him.

"There are men," said the priest, "who, when sudden misfortune
overtakes them, adopt a desperate expedient to put an end to all
worldly trouble, and thus add sin to sin."
"Have no fear for me," said the Advocate. "I am not
contemplating suicide. What fate has in store for me I will meet
without repining. You caution me against the storm, yet I perceive
you yourself are preparing to face it."
"I go to my duty," said the priest.
"And I to mine," rejoined the Advocate.
Thus they parted, each going his separate way.
The Advocate had not calculated the difficulties he was to
encounter; his progress was slow, and he had to make wide detours
on the road, and frequently to retrace his steps for a considerable
distance, in order to escape being swept to death by the floods.
From the ranges all around the village in which the House of White
Shadows was situated the water was pouring in torrents, which
swirled furiously through the lower heights, carrying almost certain
destruction to those who had not already availed themselves of the
chances of escape. Terrific as was the tempest, he took no heed of
it. It was not the storm of Nature, but the storm within his soul
which absorbed him. He met villagers on the road flying for safety.
With terror-struck movements they hurried past, men, women, and
children, uttering cries of alarm at the visitation. Now and then one
and another called upon him to turn back.
"If you proceed," they said, "you will be engulfed in the rapids.
Turn back if you wish to live."
He did not answer them, but doggedly pursued his way.
"My punishment has come," he thought. "I have no wish to live,
nor do I desire to outlast this day."

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