and, and that in seeking him in Naples I was
only advancing another step toward the fulfilment of my destiny.

On reaching my hotel I went straight to bed. Every bone in my body ached
with fatigue. Indeed, so weary was I that I could eat nothing and could
scarcely think coherently. The proprietor of the hotel was an old
friend, and for the reason that whenever I visited Naples I made it a
rule to insist upon occupying the same room, I did not experience the
same feeling of loneliness which usually assails one on retiring to rest
in a strange place. In my own mind I was convinced that as soon as my
head touched the pillow I should be asleep. But a bitter disappointment
was in store for me. I laid myself down with a sigh of satisfaction and
closed my eyes; but whether I missed the rocking of the train, or was
overtired, I can not say--at any rate, I was soon convinced of one
thing, and that was that the longer I lay there the more wakeful I
became. I tried another position, but with the same result. I turned my
pillow, only to make it the more uncomfortable. Every trick for the
production of sleep that I had ever heard of I put into execution, but
always with entire absence of success. At last, thoroughly awake and
still more thoroughly exasperated, I rose from my couch, and dressing
myself, opened the window of my room and stepped out on to the balcony.
It was a glorious night, such a one as is seldom, if ever, seen in
England. Overhead the moon sailed in a cloudless sky, revealing with her
exquisite light the city stretching away to right and left and the
expanse of harbour lying directly before me; Vesuvius standing out black
and awesome, and the dim outline of the hills toward Castellamare and
Sorrento beyond. For some reason my thoughts no longer centred
themselves on Pharos. I found the lovely face of his companion
continually rising before my eyes. There was the same expression of
hopelessness upon it that I remembered on the first occasion upon which
I had seen her; but there was this difference, that in some vague,
uncertain way she seemed now to be appealing to me to help her, to
rescue her from the life she was leading and from the man who had got
her, as he had done myself, so completely in his power. Her beauty
affected me as no other had ever done. I could still hear the soft
accents of her voice, and the echo of her wild, weird music, as plainly
as if I were still sitting listening to her in Lady Medenham's