e, or can be, affected, in
mind or body, by atmospheric influences. I am not a disciple of that
school, simply because I cannot believe that those changes of weather,
which have so much effect upon animals, and even on inanimate objects,
can fail to have some influence on a piece of machinery so sensitive and
intricate as the human frame. I think, then, that it was in part owing
to the disturbed state of the atmosphere that, on this particular evening
I felt nervous and depressed. When my new friend Strange and I parted
for the night, I felt as little disposed to go to rest as I ever did in
my life. The thunder was still lingering among the mountains in the
midst of which our inn was placed. Sometimes it seemed nearer, and at
other times further off; but it never left off altogether, except for a
few minutes at a time. I was quite unable to shake off a succession of
painful ideas which persistently besieged my mind.

"It is hardly necessary to add that I thought from time to time of my
travelling-companion in the next room. His image was almost continually
before me. He had been dull and depressed all the evening, and when we
parted for the night there was a look in his eyes which I could not get
out of my memory.

"There was a door between our rooms, and the partition dividing them was
not very solid; and yet I had heard no sound since I parted from him
which could indicate that he was there at all, much less that he was
awake and stirring. I was in a mood, sir, which made this silence
terrible to me, and so many foolish fancies--as that he was lying there
dead, or in a fit, or what not--took possession of me, that at last I
could bear it no longer. I went to the door, and, after listening, very
attentively but quite in vain, for any sound, I at last knocked pretty
sharply. There was no answer. Feeling that longer suspense would be
unendurable, I, without more ceremony, turned the handle and went in.

"It was a great bare room, and so imperfectly lighted by a single candle
that it was almost impossible--except when the lightning flashed--to see
into its great dark corners. A small rickety bedstead stood against one
of the walls, shrouded by yellow cotton curtains, passed through a great
iron ring in the ceiling. There was, for all other furniture, an old
chest of drawers which served also as a washing-stand, having a small
basin and ewer and a single towel arranged on the top of it. There were,
moreove