souvenirs of prisons and the people that
had been in them adorned a few shelves and brackets.

John Steele smiled grimly; but soon his thoughts seemed floating off
beyond control, and rising suddenly, he threw himself on the bed. For a
moment he strove to consider one or two tasks that should have been
accomplished this night but which he must defer; was vaguely conscious
of the slamming of a blind next door; then over-strained nature yielded.

Hours passed; the sun rose high in the heavens, began to sink; still the
heavy sleep of utter exhaustion claimed him. Once or twice the servant
came to the door, listened, and stole away again. The afternoon was well
advanced when, as half through a dream, John Steele heard the rude
jingling of a bell,--the catmeat man, or the milkman, drowsily he told
himself. In fancy he seemed to see the broad, flowing river from a
window of his own chambers, the dawn stealing over, marshaling its
tints,--crimson until--

Slowly through the torpor of his brain realization began also to dawn;
this room?--it was not his. The gleaming lances of sunlight that darted
through the half-closed shutters played on the strange wall-paper of a
strange apartment; no, he remembered it now--last night!

The loud and emphatic closing of the front gate served yet more speedily
to arouse him; hastily he sat up; his head buzzed from a long-needed
sleep that had been over sound; his limbs still ached, but every sense
on an instant became unnaturally keen. Footsteps resounded on the
gravel; he heard voices; those of two men, who were coming toward the
house.

"So it's the meter man you are?" John Steele recognized the inquiring
voice as that of the caretaker. "Sure, you're a new one from the last
that was here."

"Yes; we change beats occasionally," was the careless answer, as the men
passed around the side of the house and entered a rear door. For a time
there was silence; John Steele sprang from his bed and crept very softly
toward the hall. "A new man--" He heard them talking again after a few
minutes; he remained listening at his door, now slightly ajar.

"There must be a leak somewhere from the quantity you've burned. I'll
have a look around; might save your master a few shillings."

The man moved from room to room and started, at length, up the stairs.
John Steele closed and noiselessly locked his door; the "meter man"
crossed the upper hall and stepped, one after the other, into the
several rooms.