ge to him than being there himself; but
he bowed to facts.

'What do you think?' he said.

She did not answer intelligibly.

He walked up.

The crazed gabbling tongue had entire possession of the house, and rang
through it at an amazing pitch to sustain for a single minute.

A reflection to the effect that dogs die more decently than we men,
saddened the earl. But, then, it is true, we shorten their pangs by
shooting them.

A dismal figure loomed above him at the head of the stairs.

He distinguished it in the vast lean length he had once whipped and
flung to earth.

Dr. Shrapnel was planted against the wall outside that raving chamber,
at the salient angle of a common prop or buttress. The edge of a
shoulder and a heel were the supports to him sideways in his distorted
attitude. His wall arm hung dead beside his pendent frock-coat; the
hair of his head had gone to wildness, like a field of barley whipped by
tempest. One hand pressed his eyeballs: his unshaven jaw dropped.

Lord Romfrey passed him by.

The dumb consent of all present affirmed the creature lying on the bed
to be Nevil Beauchamp.

Face, voice, lank arms, chicken neck: what a sepulchral sketch of him!

It was the revelry of a corpse.

Shudders of alarm for his wife seized Lord Romfrey at the sight. He
thought the poor thing on the bed must be going, resolving to a cry,
unwinding itself violently in its hurricane of speech, that was not
speech nor exclamation, rather the tongue let loose to run to the death.
It seemed to be out in mid-sea, up wave and down wave.

A nurse was at the pillow smoothing it. Miss Denham stood at the foot of
the bed.

'Is that pain?' Lord Romfrey said low to Dr. Gannet.

'Unconscious,' was the reply.

Miss Denham glided about the room and disappeared.

Her business was to remove Dr. Shrapnel, that he might be out of the
way when Lord Romfrey should pass him again: but Dr. Shrapnel heard one
voice only, and moaned, 'My Beauchamp!' She could not get him to stir.

Miss Denham saw him start slightly as the earl stepped forth and, bowing
to him, said: 'I thank you, sir, for permitting me to visit my nephew.'

Dr. Shrapnel made a motion of the hand, to signify freedom of access to
his house. He would have spoken the effort fetched a burst of terrible
chuckles. He covered his face.

Lord Romfrey descended. The silly old wretch had disturbed his
equanimity as a composer of fiction for the comfort and sustainment